'T is not alone that black and yawning void
    That makes her heart ache with this hungry pain,
But the glad sense of life hath been destroyed,
    The lost delight may never come again.
Yet myriad serious blessings with grave grace
Arise on every side to fill their place.


For much abides in her so lonely life, -
    The dear companionship of her own kind,
Love where least looked for, quiet after strife,
    Whispers of promise upon every wind,
A quickened insight, in awakened eyes,
For the new meaning of the earth and skies.


The nameless charm about all things hath died,
    Subtle as aureole round a shadow's head,
Cast on the dewy grass at morning-tide;
    Yet though the glory and the joy be fled,
'T is much her own endurance to hav...

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 fulfill,
In spit...

    This wearisome and this distressing sleep
    That we call life, O how dost thou support,
    My Pepoli? With what hopes feedest thou
    Thy heart? Say in what thoughts, and in what deeds,
    Agreeable or sad, dost thou invest
    The idleness thy ancestors bequeathed
    To thee, a dull and heavy heritage?
    All life, indeed, in every walk of life,
    Is idleness, if we may give that name
    To every work achieved, or effort made,
    That has no worthy aim in view, or fails
    That aim to reach. And if you idle call
    The busy crew, that daily we behold,
    From tranquil morn unto the dewy eve,
    Behind the plough, or tending plants and flocks,
    Because they live simply to keep alive,
    And life is worthless for itself alone,
    Th...

Not all the bravery that day puts on
Of gold and azure, ardent or austere,
Shall ease my soul of sorrow; grown more dear
Than all the joy that heavenly hope may don.
Far up the skies the rumor of the dawn
May run, and eve like some wild torch appear;
These shall not change the darkness, gathered here,
Of thought, that rusts like an old sword undrawn.
Oh, for a place deep-sunken from the sun!
A wildwood cave of primitive rocks and moss!
Where Sleep and Silence, breast to married breast
Lie with their child, night-eyed Oblivion;
Where, freed from all the trouble of my cross,
I might forget, I might forget, and rest!

There are some qualities, some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a two-fold Silence, sea and shore,
Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
Some human memories and tearful lore,
Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."
He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
No power hath he of evil in himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!

There is an Eminence, of these our hills
The last that parleys with the setting sun;
We can behold it from our orchard-seat;
And, when at evening we pursue out walk
Along the public way, this Peak, so high
Above us, and so distant in its height,
Is visible; and often seems to send
Its own deep quiet to restore our hearts.
The meteors make of it a favourite haunt:
The star of Jove, so beautiful and large
In the mid heavens, is never half so fair
As when he shines above it. 'Tis in truth
The loneliest place we have among the clouds.
And She who dwells with me, whom I have loved
With such communion, that no place on earth
Can ever be a solitude to me,
Hath to this lonely Summit given my Name.

One without looks in to-night
Through the curtain-chink
From the sheet of glistening white;
One without looks in to-night
As we sit and think
By the fender-brink.

We do not discern those eyes
Watching in the snow;
Lit by lamps of rosy dyes
We do not discern those eyes
Wondering, aglow,
Fourfooted, tiptoe.

If I could have your arms tonight,
But half the world and the broken sea
Lie between you and me.

The autumn rain reverberates in the courtyard,
Beating all night against the barren stone,
The sound of useless rain in the desolate courtyard
Makes me more alone.

If you were here, if you were only here,
My blood cries out to you all night in vain
As sleepless as the rain.

Why do we lie

’Why do we lie,’ she questioned, her warm eyes
on the grey Autumn wind and its coursing,
’all afternoon wasted in bed like this?’
’Because we cannot lie all night together.’
’Yes,’ she said, satisfied at my reasoning,
but going on to search her cruel mind
for better excuses to leave my narrow bed.

Too many flesh suppers

Abstracted in art,
in architecture,
in scholars’ detail;

absorbed by music,
by minutiae,
by sad trivia;

all to efface her,
whom I can forget
no more than breathing.

Theatregoer

Somewhere some nights she sees
curtains rise on those rites
we also knew and felt

I sit here desolate
in spite of company

Love is between people

And sho...

In the grey tumult of these after years
Oft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part;
And less-than-echoes of remembered tears
Hush all the loud confusion of the heart;
And a shade, through the toss'd ranks of mirth and crying
Hungers, and pains, and each dull passionate mood,
Quite lost, and all but all forgot, undying,
Comes back the ecstasy of your quietude.

So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams,
Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams,
Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men,
Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible,
And light on waving grass, he knows not when,
And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell.

The shadows grow and deepen round me,
I feel the deffall in the air;
The muezzin of the darkening thicket,
I hear the night-thrush call to prayer.

The evening wind is sad with farewells,
And loving hands unclasp from mine;
Alone I go to meet the darkness
Across an awful boundary-line.

As from the lighted hearths behind me
I pass with slow, reluctant feet,
What waits me in the land of strangeness?
What face shall smile, what voice shall greet?

What space shall awe, what brightness blind me?
What thunder-roll of music stun?
What vast processions sweep before me
Of shapes unknown beneath the sun?

I shrink from unaccustomed glory,
I dread the myriad-voiced strain;
Give me the unforgotten faces,
And let my lost ones speak agai...

    Ye aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown
    Who lies here with no stone to mark the place.
    As a boy reckless and wanton,
    Wandering with gun in hand through the forest
    Near the mansion of Aaron Hatfield,
    I shot a hawk perched on the top
    Of a dead tree. He fell with guttural cry
    At my feet, his wing broken.
    Then I put him in a cage
    Where he lived many days cawing angrily at me
    When I offered him food.
    Daily I search the realms of Hades
    For the soul of the hawk,
    That I may offer him the friendship
    Of one whom life wounded and caged.
    Alexander Throckmorton

    In youth my wings were strong and tireless,
    But I did not know the mountains.
    In age I knew the mountains

There is a gladness over all the earth,
For summer is abroad in breezy mirth,
Nature rejoices and the heavens are glad,
And I alone am desolate and sad,
For I sit mourning by an empty cot,
Refusing comfort because one is not.

And I will mourn because I am bereaved,
Others have suffered others too have grieved
Over hopes broken even as mine are broke,
By a swift unexpected bitter stroke,
And I must weep as weeping Jacob prest,
To grieving lips his last ones princely vest

You tell me cease weeping, to resign
Unto the Father's a will this will of mine,
You say my lamb is on the Shepherd s breast,
My flower blooms in gardens of the blest,
I know it all I say, Thy will be done
Yet I must mourn for him--my son! my son!

When the twilight shadows deepen and the far-off lands are dim,
And the vesper dirge is stealing like the chant of cherubim,
There's a prayer within my bosom that's responsive to the sound,
There's a thought that springs within me--but 'tis sad and silence-bound.

There's a sorrow in those shadows as they lengthen on the lawn,
For the joy of life has vanished and its sweetness--all is gone,
And the purple mists of even as they hover o'er the glade
Seem to hush in voiceless gloom the deep recesses of the shade.

Oh thou beyond those heathery hills, beyond those woodlands blue,
Which, as they meet the eastern sky, receive its azure hue,
Ah, must I lonely linger here, where nought but griefs await,
Where life is but one long, long sigh, and all disconsolate?

I'm weep...

The space of the world is immense, before me and around me;
If I turn quickly, I am terrified, feeling space surround me;
Like a man in a boat on very clear, deep water, space frightens and confounds me.

I see myself isolated in the universe, and wonder
What effect I can have. My hands wave under
The heavens like specks of dust that are floating asunder.

I hold myself up, and feel a big wind blowing
Me like a gadfly into the dusk, without my knowing
Whither or why or even how I am going.

So much there is outside me, so infinitely
Small am I, what matter if minutely
I beat my way, to be lost immediately?

How shall I flatter myself that I can do
Anything in such immensity? I am too
Little to count in the wind that drifts me through.

GLAS...

The light has left the hill-side. Yesterday
These skies shewed blue against the dusky trees,
The leaves' soft murmur in the evening breeze
Was music, and the waves danced in the bay.
Then was my heart, as ever, far away
With you, - and I could see you as one sees
A mirrored face, - and happiness and ease
And hope were mine, in spite of long delay.

After these months of waiting, this is all!
Hope, dead, lies coffined, shrouded in despair,
With all the blessings of the outer air
Forgot, 'neath the black covering of a pall.
Only the darkening of the woodland ways,
A heart's low moaning over wasted days.

Here, where love's stuff is body, arm and side
Are stabbing-sweet 'gainst chair and lamp and wall.
In every touch more intimate meanings hide;
And flaming brains are the white heart of all.

Here, million pulses to one centre beat:
Closed in by men's vast friendliness, alone,
Two can be drunk with solitude, and meet
On the sheer point where sense with knowing's one.

Here the green-purple clanging royal night,
And the straight lines and silent walls of town,
And roar, and glare, and dust, and myriad white
Undying passers, pinnacle and crown

Intensest heavens between close-lying faces
By the lamp's airless fierce ecstatic fire;
And we've found love in little hidden places,
Under great shades, between the mist and mire.

Stay! though the woo...

Seek not, my Lesbia, the sequester'd dale,
    Or bear thou to its shades a tranquil heart;
    Since rankles most in solitude the smart
    Of injur'd charms and talents, when they fail
To meet their due regard; - nor e'en prevail
    Where most they wish to please: - Yet, since thy part
    Is large in Life's chief blessings, why desert
    Sullen the world? - Alas! how many wail
Dire loss of the best comforts Heaven can grant!
    While they the bitter tear in secret pour,
    Smote by the death of Friends, Disease, or Want,
Slight wrongs if thy self-valuing soul deplore,
    Thou but resemblest, in thy lonely haunt,
    Narcissus pining on the watry shore.