There falls with every wedding chime
A feather from the wing of Time.
You pick it up, and say “How fair
To look upon its colors are!”
Another drops day after day            
Unheeded; not one word you say.
When bright and dusky are blown past,
Upon the hearse there nods the last.

The Autumn pines and fades
Upon the withered trees;
And over there, a choked despair,
You hear the moaning breeze.

The violets are dead;
Dead the tall hollyhocks,
That hang like rags on the wind-crushed flags,
And the lilies' livid stocks.

The wild gourd clambers free
Where the clematis was wont;
Where nenuphars waxed thick as stars
Rank weeds stagnate the font.

Yet in my dreams I hear
A tinkling mandolin;
In the dark blue light of a fragrant night
Float in and out and in.

And the dewy vine that climbs
To my lady's lattice sways,
And behind the vine there come to shine
Two pleasant eyes and gaze.

And now a perfume comes,
A swift Favonian gust;
And the shrinking grass where it doth pass
Bows slave...

To make a fairer,
A kinder, a more constant world than this;
To make time longer
And love a little stronger,

To give to blossoms
And trees and fruits more beauty than they bear,
Adding to sweetness
The aye-wanted completeness,

To say to sorrow,
"Ease now thy bosom of its snaky burden";
(And sorrow brightened,
No more stung and frightened),

To cry to death,
"Stay a little, O proud Shade, thy stony hand";
(And death removing
Left us amazed loving);--

For this and this,
O inward Spirit, arm thyself with power;
Be it thy duty
To give a body to beauty.

Thine to remake
The world in thy hid likeness, and renew
The fading vision
In spite of time's derision.

Be it thine, O spirit,
The worl...

Silently -- shadowly -- some lives go,
And the sound of their voices is all unheard;
Or, if heard at all, 'tis as faint as the flow
Of beautiful waves which no storm hath stirred.
    Deep lives these
    As the pearl-strewn seas.

Softly and noiselessly some feet tread
Lone ways on earth, without leaving a mark;
They move 'mid the living, they pass to the dead,
As still as the gleam of a star thro' the dark.
    Sweet lives those
    In their strange repose.

Calmly and lowly some hearts beat,
And none may know that they beat at all;
They muffle their music whenever they meet
A few in a hut or a crowd in a hall.
    Great hearts those --
    God only knows!

Soundlessly -- shadowly -- such move on,
Dim as the dream of a child asl...

Mother, don't hold me,
Mother, your caress hurts me,
See through my face,
How I glow and wane.
Give the last kiss.    Let me go.
Send a prayer after me.
That I broke your life,
Mother, forgive me.

No Muse will I invoke; for she is fled!
Lo! where she sits, breathing, yet all but dead.
She loved the heavens of old, she thought them fair;
And dream'd of Gods in Tempe's golden air.
For her the wind had voice, the sea its cry;
She deem'd heroic Greece could never die.
Breathless was she, to think what nymphs might play
In clear green depths, deep-shaded from the day;
She thought the dim and inarticulate god
Was beautiful, nor knew she man a sod;
But hoped what seem'd might not be all untrue,
And feared to look beyond the eternal blue.
But now the heavens are bared of dreams divine.
Still murmurs she, like Autumn, _This was mine!_
How should she face the ghastly, jarring Truth,
That questions all, and tramples without ruth?
And still she clings to Ida of her...

Drifting, drifting down the River,
Tawny current and foam-flecked tide,
Sorrowful songs of lonely boatmen,
Mournful forests on either side.

Thine are the outcrops' glittering blocks,
The quartz where the rich pyrites gleam,
The golden treasure of unhewn rocks
And the loose gold in the stream.

But, - the dim vast forests along the shore,
That whisper wonderful things o' nights, -
These are things that I value more,
My beautiful "surface rights."

Drifting, drifting down the River, -
Stars a-tremble about the sky -
Ah, my lover, my heart is breaking,
Breaking, breaking, I know not why.

Why is Love such a sorrowful thing?
This I never could understand;
Pain and passion are linked together,
Ever I find them hand in hand.
...

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gayly chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.

The clouds are at play in the azure space,
And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,
And here they stretch to the frolic chase,
And there they roll on the easy gale.

There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,
There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree,
There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.

And look at the bro...

When winter chills your aged bones
As by the fire you sit and nod,
You’ll hear a passing wind that moans,
And think of one beneath the sod.

You’ll feebly sleek your hair of grey,
And mutter words that none may know,
And dream you touch the sodden clay
That laps the dream of long ago.

The shrinking ash may fall apart
And show a gleam that lingers yet.
A moment in your cooling heart
May shine a sparkle of regret.

And where the pit is chill and deep,
And bones are mouldering in the clay,
A thrill of buried love will creep
And shudder aimlessly away.

How clear she shines! How quietly
I lie beneath her guardian light;
While heaven and earth are whispering me,
"To morrow, wake, but dream to-night."
Yes, Fancy, come, my Fairy love!
These throbbing temples softly kiss;
And bend my lonely couch above,
And bring me rest, and bring me bliss.

The world is going; dark world, adieu!
Grim world, conceal thee till the day;
The heart thou canst not all subdue
Must still resist, if thou delay!

Thy love I will not, will not share;
Thy hatred only wakes a smile;
Thy griefs may wound, thy wrongs may tear,
But, oh, thy lies shall ne'er beguile!
While gazing on the stars that glow
Above me, in that stormless sea,
I long to hope that all the woe
Creation knows, is held in thee!

And this s...

(France -- Ancient Regime.)



I.

Go away!

Go away; I will not confess to you!

His black biretta clings like a hangman's cap; under his twitching fingers
the beads shiver and click,
As he mumbles in his corner, the shadow deepens upon him;
I will not confess!...

Is he there or is it intenser shadow?
Dark huddled coilings from the obscene depths,
Black, formless shadow,
Shadow.
Doors creak; from secret parts of the chateau come the scuffle and worry
of rats.

Orange light drips from the guttering candles,
Eddying over the vast embroideries of the bed
Stirring the monstrous tapestries,
Retreating before the sable impending gloom of the canopy
With a swift thrust and sparkle of gold,
Lipping my hands,

An age in her embraces passed
Would seem a winter's day;
When life and light, with envious haste,
Are torn and snatched away.

But, oh! how slowly minutes roll.
When absent from her eyes
That feed my love, which is my soul,
It languishes and dies.

For then no more a soul but shade
It mournfully does move
And haunts my breast, by absence made
The living tomb of love.

You wiser men despise me not,
Whose love-sick fancy raves
On shades of souls and Heaven knows what;
Short ages live in graves.

Whene'er those wounding eyes, so full
Of sweetness, you did see,
Had you not been profoundly dull,
You had gone mad like me.

Nor censure us, you who perceive
My best beloved and me
Sign and lament, complain and grie...

When I went to look at what had long been hidden,
A jewel laid long ago in a secret place,
I trembled, for I thought to see its dark deep fire,
But only a pinch of dust blew up in my face.

I almost gave my life long ago for a thing
That has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes,
It is strange how often a heart must be broken,
Before the years can make it wise.

Swifter than aught 'neath the sun the car of Simonides moved him.
Two things he could not out-run Death and a Woman who loved him.

This is the last of all, this is the last!
I must hold my hands, and turn my face to the fire,
I must watch my dead days fusing together in dross,
Shape after shape, and scene after scene from my past
Fusing to one dead mass in the sinking fire
Where the ash on the dying coals grows swiftly, like heavy moss.

Strange he is, my son, whom I have awaited like a lover,
Strange to me like a captive in a foreign country, haunting
The confines and gazing out on the land where the wind is free;
White and gaunt, with wistful eyes that hover
Always on the distance, as if his soul were chaunting
The monotonous weird of departure away from me.

Like a strange white bird blown out of the frozen seas,
Like a bird from the far north blown with a broken wing
Into our sooty ga...

WRITTEN IN COVE CHURCH-YARD; AND OCCASIONED BY OBSERVING MY OWN SHADOW THROWN ACROSS A GRAVE.


    "Tell me, thou grassy mound,
        What dost thou cover?
    In thy folds hast thou bound
        Soldier or lover?
Time o'er the turf no memorial is keeping
Who in this lone grave forgotten is sleeping?"--

    "The sun's westward ray
        A dark shadow has thrown
    On this dwelling of clay,
        And the shade is thine own!
From dust and oblivion this stern lesson borrow--
Thou art living to-day and forgotten to-morrow!"

Gone hath the Spring, with all its flowers,
And gone the Summer’s pomp and show,
And Autumn, in his leafless bowers,
Is waiting for the Winter’s snow.

I said to Earth, so cold and gray,
“An emblem of myself thou art.”
“Not so,” the Earth did seem to say,
“For Spring shall warm my frozen heart.”
I soothe my wintry sleep with dreams
Of warmer sun and softer rain,
And wait to hear the sound of streams
And songs of merry birds again.

But thou, from whom the Spring hath gone,
For whom the flowers no longer blow,
Who standest blighted and forlorn,
Like Autumn waiting for the snow;

No hope is thine of sunnier hours,
Thy Winter shall no more depart;
No Spring revive thy wasted flowers,
Nor Summer warm thy frozen heart.

Amor mi manda quel dolce pensero.

LIFE WILL FAIL HIM BEFORE HOPE.


    Love to my mind recalling that sweet thought,
The ancient confidant our lives between,
Well comforts me, and says I ne'er have been
So near as now to what I hoped and sought.
I, who at times with dangerous falsehood fraught,
At times with partial truth, his words have seen,
Live in suspense, still missing the just mean,
'Twixt yea and nay a constant battle fought.
Meanwhile the years pass on: and I behold
In my true glass the adverse time draw near
Her promise and my hope which limits here.
So let it be: alone I grow not old;
Changes not e'en with age my loving troth;
My fear is this--the short life left us both.

MACGREGOR.