O heart, - that beat the bird's blithe blood,
The blithe bird's strain, and understood
The song it sang to leaf and bud, -
What dost thou in the wood?

O soul, - that kept the brook's glad flow,
The glad brook's word to sun and moon, -
What dost thou here where song lies low,
And dead the dreams of June?

Where once was heard a voice of song,
The hautboys of the mad winds sing;
Where once a music flowed along,
The rain's wild bugle's ring.

The weedy water frets and ails,
And moans in many a sunless fall;
And, o'er the melancholy, trails
The black crow's eldritch call.

Unhappy brook! O withered wood!
O days, whom Death makes comrades of!
Where are the birds that thrilled the blood
When Life struck hands with Love?

    There is a quiet in my heart
    Like one who rests from days of pain.
    Outside, the sparrows on the roof
    Are chirping in the dripping rain.

    Rain in my heart; rain on the roof;
    And memory sleeps beneath the gray
    And windless sky and brings no dreams
    Of any well remembered day.

    I would not have the heavens fair,
    Nor golden clouds, nor breezes mild,
    But days like this, until my heart
    To loss of you is reconciled.

    I would not see you. Every hope
    To know you as you were has ranged.
    I, who am altered, would not find
    The face I loved so greatly changed.

Sweet Spring, thou turn’st with all thy goodly train,
Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow’rs:
The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,
The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show’rs.
Thou turn’st, sweet youth, but ah! my pleasant hours
And happy days with thee come not again;
The sad memorials only of my pain
Do with thee turn, which turn my sweets in sours.
Thou art the same which still thou wast before,
Delicious, wanton, amiable, fair;
But she, whose breath embalm’d thy wholesome air,
Is gone, nor gold nor gems her can restore.
Neglected virtue, seasons go and come,

Now to my lips lift then some opiate
Of black forgetfulness! while in thy gaze
Still lures the loveless beauty that betrays,
And in thy mouth the music that is hate.
No promise more hast thou to make me wait;
No smile to cozen my sick heart with praise!
Far, far behind thee stretch laborious days,
And far before thee, labors soon and late.
Thine is the fen-fire that we deem a star,
Flying before us, ever fugitive,
Thy mocking policy still holds afar:
And thine the voice, to which our longings give
Hope's siren face, that speaks us sweet and fair,
Only to lead us captives to Despair.

[Greek poem here--Euripides.]



Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
    And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene.
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
    Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
    No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
    The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
    I lay upon the ground;
His hoary arms uplifted he,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,
    With one continuous sound;--

A slumberous sound, a sound that brings
    The feelings of a dream,
As of innumerable wings,
A...

All is not right with him, who ill sustains
    Retirement's silent hours. - Himself he flies,
    Perchance from that insipid equipoise,
    Which always with the hapless mind remains
That feels no native bias; never gains
    One energy of will, that does not rise
    From some external cause, to which he hies
    From his own blank inanity. - When reigns,
With a strong, cultur'd mind, this wretched hate
    To commune with himself, from thought that tells
    Of some lost joy, or dreaded stroke of Fate
He struggles to escape; - or sense that dwells
    On secret guilt towards God, or Man, with weight
    Thrice dire, the self-exiling flight impels.

Hearken, oh hearken! let your souls behind you
Turn, gently moved!
Our voices feel along the Dread to find you,
O lost, beloved!
Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels,
They press and pierce:
Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,
Voice throbs in verse.
We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden
A time ago:
God gave us golden cups, and we were bidden
To feed you so.
But now our right hand hath no cup remaining,
No work to do,
The mystic hydromel is spilt, and staining
The whole earth through.
Most ineradicable stains, for showing
(Not interfused!)
That brighter colours were the world’s foregoing,
Than shall be used.
Hearken, oh hearken! ye shall hearken surely
For years and years,
The noise beside you, dripping c...

"Why sit'st thou by that ruin'd hall,
Thou aged carle so stern and grey?
Dost thou its former pride recall,
Or ponder how it pass'd away?"

"Know'st thou not me?" the Deep Voice cried;
"So long enjoy'd, so oft misused,
Alternate, in thy fickle pride,
Desired, neglected, and accused!

"Before my breath, like blazing flax,
Man and his marvels pass away!
And changing empires wane and wax,
Are founded, flourish, and decay,

"Redeem mine hours, the space is brief,
While in my glass the sand-grains shiver,
And measureless thy joy or grief,
When Time and thou shalt part for ever!"

Like a white fungus, a lump of wind covers
The green corpse of the lost world.
Frozen rivers form an iron dam
Which holds together the rotten remains.
In a small rainy corner stands
The last city in stony patience.
A dead skull lies - like a prayer -
Slanted on the body, the black penitential bench.

O, tomb of the past
Where buried hopes lie,
In my visions I see
Thy phantoms pass by!
A form, long departed,
    Before me appears;
A sweet voice, long silent,
    Again greets my ears.

Fond memory dwells
    On the things that have been;
And my eyes calmly gaze
    On a long vanished scene;
A scene such as memory
    Stores deep in the breast,
Which only appears
    In a season of rest.

Once more we wander,
    Her fair hand in mine;
Once more her promise,
    "I'll ever be thine";
Once more the parting,
    The shroud, and the pall,
The sods' hollow thump
    As they coffinward fall.

The reverie ends--
    All the fancies have flown;
And my sad, lonely heart,
    Now seems doubly alone;...

I

Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent,
One-third departed of the mortal span,
Carrying on the child into the man,
Nothing into reality. Sails rent,
And rudder broken, reason impotent
Affections all unfixed; so forth I fare
On the mid seas unheedingly, so dare
To do and to be done by, well content.
So was it from the first, so is it yet;
Yea, the first kiss that by these lips was set
On any human lips, methinks was sin
Sin, cowardice, and falsehood; for the will
Into a deed e’en then advanced, wherein
God, unidentified, was thought-of still.

II

Though to the vilest things beneath the moon
For poor Ease’ sake I give away my heart,
And for the moment’s sympathy let part
My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon,
My ...

Say, art thou angry? words unkind
    Have fallen upon thine ear,
Thy spirit hath been wounded too
    By mocking jest or sneer,
But mind it not - relax at once
    Thine o'ercast and troubled brow -
What will be taunt or jest to thee
    In a few short years from now?

Or, perhaps thou mayst be pining
    Beneath some bitter grief,
From whose pangs in vain thou seekest
    Or respite or relief;
Fret not 'neath Heav'n's chastening rod
    But submissive to it bow;
Thy griefs will all be hushed to rest
    In a few short years from now.

Art toiling for some worldly aim,
    Or for some golden prize,
Devoting to that glitt'ring goal
    Thy thoughts, thy smiles, thy sighs?
Ah! rest thee from the idle chase,
    With no bliss c...

    In Edvard Munch's painting, The Scream, eyes
    are grouped as discs ? almost rotund arches,
    much as suns breaking over an eclipsed wall.
    Hollows, jittery the bridge a creamed escape
    careening the soul madly backward
    a pastel gathering sky -
    water rivulets where two solitary, graven figures
    seem indulging a flaccid, breaking stream.

I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,
To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold.

Dew on her robe and on her tangled hair;
Twin dewdrops for her eyes; behold her pass,
With dainty step brushing the young, green grass,
The while she trills some high, fantastic air,
Full of all feathered sweetness: she is fair,
And all her flower-like beauty, as a glass,
Mirrors out hope and love: and still, alas!
Traces of tears her languid lashes wear.

Say, doth she weep for very wantonness?
Or is it that she dimly doth foresee
Across her youth the joys grow less and less
The burden of the days that are to be:
Autumn and withered leaves and vanity,
And winter bringing end in barrenness.

This is the street and the dwelling,
Let me count the houses o'er;
Yes,--one, two, three from the corner,
And the house that I love makes four.

That is the very window
Where I used to see her head
Bent over book or needle,
With ivy garlanded.

And the very loop of the curtain,
And the very curve of the vine,
Were full of the grace and the meaning
Which was hers by some right divine.

I began to be glad at the corner,
And all the way to the door
My heart outran my footsteps,
And frolicked and danced before,

In haste for the words of welcome,
The voice, the repose and grace,
And the smile, like a benediction,
Of that beautiful, vanished face.

Now I pass the door, and I pause not,
And I look the other way;

As a forlorn soul waiting by the Styx
    Dimly expectant of lands yet more dim,
Might peer afraid where shadows change and mix
    Till the dark ferryman shall come for him.

And past all hope a long ray in his sight,
    Fall'n trickling down the steep crag Hades-black
Reveals an upward path to life and light,
    Nor any let but he should mount that track.

As with the sudden shock of joy amazed,
    He might a motionless sweet moment stand,
So doth that mortal lover, silent, dazed,
    For hope had died and loss was near at hand.

'Wilt thou?' his quest. Unready but for 'Nay,'
He stands at fault for joy, she whispering 'Ay.'

Ill-Fated hour! oft as thy annual reign
Leads on th'autumnal tide, my pinion'd joys
Fade with the glories of the fading year;
"Remembrance 'wakes with all her busy train,"
And bids affection heave the heart-drawn sigh
O'er the cold tomb, rich with the spoils of death,
And wet with many a tributary tear!

Eight times has each successive season sway'd
The fruitful sceptre of our milder clime
Since My Loved ****** died! but why, ah! why
Should melancholy cloud my early years?
Religion spurns earth's visionary scene,
Philosophy revolts at misery's chain:
Just Heaven recall'd it's own, the pilgrim call'd
From human woes, from sorrow's rankling worm;
Shall frailty then prevail?

                Oh! be it mine
To curb the sigh which bursts o'er Heaven'...