I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"

For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve;
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.

I.

"I belt the morn with ribboned mist;
With baldricked blue I gird the noon,
And dusk with purple, crimson-kissed,
White-buckled with the hunter's moon.

"These follow me," the season says:
"Mine is the frost-pale hand that packs
Their scrips, and speeds them on their ways,
With gipsy gold that weighs their backs."


II.

A daybreak horn the Autumn blows,
As with a sun-tanned band he parts
Wet boughs whereon the berry glows;
And at his feet the red-fox starts.

The leafy leash that holds his hounds
Is loosed; and all the noonday hush
Is startled; and the hillside sounds
Behind the fox's bounding brush.

When red dusk makes the western sky
A fire-lit window through the firs,
He stoops to see the red-fox d...

"Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor meum."
- Ps. ci

Wintertime nighs;
But my bereavement-pain
It cannot bring again:
Twice no one dies.

Flower-petals flee;
But, since it once hath been,
No more that severing scene
Can harrow me.

Birds faint in dread:
I shall not lose old strength
In the lone frost's black length:
Strength long since fled!

Leaves freeze to dun;
But friends can not turn cold
This season as of old
For him with none.

Tempests may scath;
But love can not make smart
Again this year his heart
Who no heart hath.

Black is night's cope;
But death will not appal
One who, past doubtings all,
Waits in unhope.

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb. -
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
- I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once, you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me?

The twilight is sad and cloudy,
    The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
    Flash the white caps of the sea.

But in the fisherman's cottage
    There shines a ruddier light,
And a little face at the window
    Peers out into the night.

Close, close it is pressed to the window,
    As if those childish eyes
Were looking into the darkness,
    To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow
    Is passing to and fro,
Now rising to the ceiling,
    Now bowing and bending low.

What tale do the roaring ocean,
    And the night-wind, bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
    Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean,
    And the night-wind, wild and bleak...

        They locked him in a prison cell,
                Murky and mean.
        She kissed him there a wife's farewell
                The bars between.
        And when she turned to go, the crowd,
        Thinking to see her shamed and bowed,
        Saw her pass out as calm and proud
                As any queen.

        She passed a kinsman on the street,
                To whose sad eyes
        She made reply with smile as sweet
                As April skies.
        To one who loved her once and knew
        The sorrow of her life, she threw
        A gay word, ere his tale was due
                Of sympathies.

        She met a playmate, whose red rose
                Had never a thorn,
        Whom fortune guided when she cho...

A sunset's mounded cloud;
A diamond evening-star;
Sad blue hills afar;
Love in his shroud.

Scarcely a tear to shed;
Hardly a word to say;
The end of a summer day;
Sweet Love dead.

In that black forest, where, when day is done,
With a snake’s stillness glides the Amazon
Darkly from sunset to the rising sun,

A cry, as of the pained heart of the wood,
The long, despairing moan of solitude
And darkness and the absence of all good,

Startles the traveller, with a sound so drear,
So full of hopeless agony and fear,
His heart stands still and listens like his ear.

The guide, as if he heard a dead-bell toll,
Starts, drops his oar against the gunwale’s thole,
Crosses himself, and whispers, “A lost soul!”

“No, Señor, not a bird. I know it well,
It is the pained soul of some infidel
Or cursed heretic that cries from hell.

“Poor fool! with hope still mocking his despair,
He wanders, shrieking on the midnight air
Fo...

Until we meet again!    That is the meaning
Of the familiar words, that men repeat
    At parting in the street.
Ah yes, till then! but when death intervening
Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain
    We wait for the Again!

The friends who leave us do not feel the sorrow
Of parting, as we feel it, who must stay
    Lamenting day by day,
And knowing, when we wake upon the morrow,
We shall not find in its accustomed place
    The one beloved face.

It were a double grief, if the departed,
Being released from earth, should still retain
    A sense of earthly pain;
It were a double grief, if the true-hearted,
Who loved us here, should on the farther shore
    Remember us no more.

Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,
That...

Although this land is not my own,
I will remember its inland sea
and the waters that are so cold
the sand as white
as old bones, the pine trees
strangely red where the sun comes down.

I cannot say if it is our love,
or the day, that is ending.

"What ails the world?" the poet cried;
    "And why does death walk everywhere?
    And why do tears fall anywhere?
    And skies have clouds, and souls have care?"
Thus the poet sang, and sighed.

For he would fain have all things glad,
    All lives happy, all hearts bright;
    Not a day would end in night,
    Not a wrong would vex a right --
And so he sang -- and he was sad.

Thro' his very grandest rhymes
    Moved a mournful monotone --
    Like a shadow eastward thrown
    From a sunset -- like a moan
Tangled in a joy-bell's chimes.

"What ails the world?" he sang and asked --
    And asked and sang -- but all in vain;
    No answer came to any strain,
    And no reply to his refrain --
The mystery moved 'round him masked....

"The voice of One hath spoken,
    And the bended reed is bruised -
The golden bowl is broken,
    And the silver cord is loosed."

Over the eyes of gladness
    The lids of sorrow fall,
And the light of mirth is darkened
    Under the funeral pall.

The hearts that throbbed with rapture
    In dreams of the future years,
Are wakened from their slumbers,
    And their visions drowned in tears.

    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
Two buds on the bough in the morning -
    Twin buds in the smiling sun,
But the frost of death has fallen
    And blighted the bloom of one.

One leaf of life still folded
    Has fallen from the stem,
Leaving the symbol teaching
    There still are two of them, -

For though - throug...

It is the bell of death I hear,
Which tells me my own time is near,
When I must join those quiet souls
Where nothing lives but worms and moles;
And not come through the grass again,
Like worms and moles, for breath or rain;
Yet let none weep when my life's through,
For I myself have wept for few.

The only things that knew me well
Were children, dogs, and girls that fell;
I bought poor children cakes and sweets,
Dogs heard my voice and danced the streets;
And, gentle to a fallen lass,
I made her weep for what she was.
Good men and women know not me.
Nor love nor hate the mystery.

In thin clear light unshadowed shapes go by
Small on green fields beneath the hueless sky.
They do not stay for question, do not hear
Any old human speech: their tongue and ear
Seem only thought, for when I spoke they stirred not
And their bright minds conversing my ear heard not.
--Until I slept or, musing, on a heap
Of warm crisp fern lay between sense and sleep
Drowsy, still clinging to a strand of thought
Spider-like frail and all unconscious wrought.
For thinking of that unforgettable thing,
The war, that spreads a loud and shaggy wing
On things most peaceful, simple, happy and bright,
Until the spirit is blind though the eye is light;
Thinking of all that evil, envy, hate,
The cruelty most dark, most desolate;
Thinking of the English dead--"How can you d...

We were apart: yet, day by day,
I bade my heart more constant be;
I bade it keep the world away,
And grow a home for only thee:
Nor fear’d but thy love likewise grew,
Like mine, each day more tried, more true.

The fault was grave: I might have known,
What far too soon, alas, I learn’d
The heart can bind itself alone,
And faith is often unreturn’d.
Self-sway’d our feelings ebb and swell:
Thou lov’est no more: Farewell! Farewell!

Farewell! and thou, thou lonely heart,
Which never yet without remorse
Even for a moment didn’t depart
From thy remote and spherèd course
To haunt the place where passions reign,
Back to thy solitude again!

Back, with the conscious thrill of shame
Which Luna felt, that summer night,
Flash through he...

Why do ye weep, sweet babes? can tears
Speak grief in you,
Who were but born
just as the modest morn
Teem'd her refreshing dew?
Alas, you have not known that shower
That mars a flower,
Nor felt th' unkind
Breath of a blasting wind,
Nor are ye worn with years;
Or warp'd as we,
Who think it strange to see,
Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young,
To speak by tears, before ye have a tongue.

Speak, whimp'ring younglings, and make known
The reason why
Ye droop and weep;
Is it for want of sleep,
Or childish lullaby?
Or that ye have not seen as yet
The violet?
Or brought a kiss
From that Sweet-heart, to this?
No, no, this sorrow shown
By your tears shed,
Would have this lecture read,
That things of greatest, ...

1.
The odour from the flower is gone
Which like thy kisses breathed on me;
The colour from the flower is flown
Which glowed of thee and only thee!

2.
A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,
It lies on my abandoned breast,
And mocks the heart which yet is warm,
With cold and silent rest.

3.
I weep, - my tears revive it not!
I sigh, - it breathes no more on me;
Its mute and uncomplaining lot
Is such as mine should be.

NOTES:
_1 odour]colour 1839.
_2 kisses breathed]sweet eyes smiled 1839.
_3 colour]odour 1839.
_4 glowed]breathed 1839.
_5 shrivelled]withered 1839.
_8 cold and silent all editions; its cold, silent Stacey manuscript.

O soul of life, 't is thee we long to hear,
Thine eyes we seek for, and thy touch we dream;
Lost from our days, thou art a spirit near, -
Life needs thine eloquence, and ways supreme.
More real than we who but a semblance wear,
We see thee not, because thou wilt not seem!