Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
    When vanishes each prospect fair,
When the last flickering ray has sped,
    And naught remains but mute despair;
When inky blackness doth enshroud
    The hopes the heart once held in store,
As some tall pine, by great winds bowed,
    Doth snap, and when the tempest's o'er,
Its noble form, magnificent and proud,
    Doth prostrate lie, nor ever riseth more;
    Thus breaks the heart, which sees no hope before.

Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
    That heart is as some ruin old,
With ancient arch and wall, o'erspread
    With moss, and desolating mold;
Whose banquet halls, where once the sound
    Of revelry rang unconfined,
Now, with the hoot of owls resound,
    Or echo back the mournful w...

I shall never forget you, never.    Never escape
Your memory woven about the beautiful things of life.

The sudden Thought of your Face is like a Wound
    When it comes unsought
On some scent of Jasmin, Lilies, or pale Tuberose.
Any one of the sweet white fragrant flowers,
Flowers I used to love and lay in your hair.

Sunset is terribly sad. I saw you stand
Tall against the red and the gold like a slender palm;
The light wind stirred your hair as you waved your hand,
Waved farewell, as ever, serene and calm,
To me, the passion-wearied and tost and torn,
Riding down the road in the gathering grey.
    Since that day
The sunset red is empty, the gold forlorn.

Often across the Banqueting board at nights
Men linger about your name in careless prai...

I think no father under any sky
More fondly loved a daughter than did I,
And scarcely ever has a child been born
Whose loss her parents could more justly mourn.
Unspoiled and neat, obedient at all times,
She seemed already versed in songs and rhymes,
And with a highborn courtesy and art,
Though but a babe, she played a maiden's part.
Discreet and modest, sociable and free
From jealous habits, docile, mannerly,
She never thought to taste her morning fare
Until she should have said her morning prayer;
She never went to sleep at night until
She had prayed God to save us all from ill.
She used to run to meet her father when
He came from any journey home again;
She loved to work and to anticipate
The servants of the house ere they could wait
Upon her pare...

Matron! the children of whose love,
Each to his grave, in youth hath passed,
And now the mould is heaped above
The dearest and the last!
Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener wo,
Of which the sufferers never speak,
Nor to the world's cold pity show
The tears that scald the cheek,
Wrung from their eyelids by the shame
And guilt of those they shrink to name,
Whom once they loved with cheerful will,
And love, though fallen and branded, still.

Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,
Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve;
And reverenced are the tears ye shed,
And honoured ye who grieve.
The praise of th...

1
Mr. Beringer, whose son
fell at the Canal that strangers dug
so ships could cross the desert,
crosses my path at Jaffa Gate.

He has grown very thin, has lost
the weight of his son.
That's why he floats so lightly in the alleys
and gets caught in my heart like little twigs
that drift away.

2
As a child he would mash his potatoes
to a golden mush.
And then you die.

A living child must be cleaned
when he comes home from playing.
But for a dead man
earth and sand are clear water, in which
his body goes on being bathed and purified
forever.

3
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
across there. On the enemy's side. A good landmark
for gunners of the future.

Or the war monument in London
at Hyde P...

I think to-night I could bear it all,
Even the arrow that cleft the core,
Could I wait again for your swift footfall,
And your sunny face coming in at the door.
With the old frank look and the gay young smile,
And the ring of the words you used to say;
I could almost deem the pain worth while,
To greet you again in the olden way!

But you stand without in the dark and cold,
And I may not open the long closed door,
Nor call thro’ the night, with the love of old,
“Come into the warmth, as in nights of yore!”
I kneel alone in the red fire-glow,
And hear the wings of the wind sweep by;
You are out afar in the night, I know,
And the sough of the wind is like a cry.

You are out afar, and I wait within,
A grave-eyed woman whose pulse is slow;
The...

The thoughts that rain their steady glow
Like stars on life’s cold sea,
Which others know, or say they know
They never shone for me.

Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit’s sky,
But they will not remain.
They light me once, they hurry by,
And never come again.

    Nor wilt thou rest forever, weary heart.
    The last illusion is destroyed,
    That I eternal thought. Destroyed!
    I feel all hope and all desire depart,
    For life and its deceitful joys.
    Forever rest! Enough! Thy throbbings cease!
    Naught can requite thy miseries;
    Nor is earth worthy of thy sighs.
    Life is a bitter, weary load,
    The world a slough. And now, repose!
    Despair no more, but find in Death
    The only boon Fate on our race bestows!
    Still, Nature, art thou doomed to fall,
    The victim scorned of that blind, brutal power
    That rules and ruins all.

The long and tedious months move slowly by
And February's chill has fled away
Before the gales of March, and now e'en they
Have died upon the peaceful April sky:
And still I sadly wander, still I sigh,
And all the splendour of each Springtime day
Is dyed, for me, one melancholy grey,
And all its beauty can but make me cry.

For thou art silent, Oh! far distant friend,
And not one word has come to cheer my heart
Through these sad months, which seem to have no end,
So distant seems the day which bade us part!
Oh speak! dear fair-haired angel! Spring has smiled,
And I despair - a broken-hearted child.

FRANCE, 1917.

My thought of thee is tortured in my sleep--
Sometimes thou art near beside me, but a cloud
Doth grudge me thy pale face, and rise to creep
Slowly about thee, to lap thee in a shroud;
And I, as standing by my dead, to weep
Desirous, cannot weep, nor cry aloud.
Or we must face the clamouring of a crowd
Hissing our shame; and I who ought to keep
Thine honour safe and my betrayed heart proud,
Knowing thee true, must watch a chill doubt leap
The tired faith of thee, and thy head bow'd,
Nor budge while the gross world holdeth thee cheap!

Or there are frost-bound meetings, and reproach
At parting, furtive snatches full of fear;
Love grown a pain; we bleed to kiss, and kiss
Because we bleed for love; the time doth broach
Shame, and shame teareth at us till we t...

Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drank the last pale beam of even:
Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.

Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away!
Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood:
Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay:
Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.

Away, away! to thy sad and silent home;
Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth;
Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come,
And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.

The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head:
The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet:
But thy soul or this...

I.

    Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care,
    A burden more than I can bear,
        I set me down and sigh:
    O life! thou art a galling load,
    Along a rough, a weary road,
        To wretches such as I!
    Dim-backward as I cast my view,
        What sick'ning scenes appear!
    What sorrows yet may pierce me thro'
        Too justly I may fear!
            Still caring, despairing,
                Must be my bitter doom;
            My woes here shall close ne'er
                But with the closing tomb!

II.

    Happy, ye sons of busy life,
    Who, equal to the bustling strife,
        No other view regard!
    Ev'n when the wished end's deny'd,
    Yet while the busy means are ply'd,
        They b...

Me thinks this heart should rest awhile
So stilly round the evening falls
The veiled sun sheds no parting smile
Nor mirth nor music wakes my Halls

I have sat lonely all the day
Watching the drizzly mist descend
And first conceal the hills in grey
And then along the valleys wend

And I have sat and watched the trees
And the sad flowers how drear they blow
Those flowers were formed to feel the breeze
Wave their light leaves in summer's glow

Yet their lives passed in gloomy woe
And hopeless comes its dark decline
And I lament because I know
That cold departure pictures mine

    Dreary! weary!
    Weary! dreary!
Sighs my soul this lonely night.
    Farewell gladness!
    Welcome sadness!
Vanished are my visions bright.

    Stars are shining!
    Winds are pining!
In the sky and o'er the sea;
    Shine forever
    Stars! but never
Can the starlight gladden me.

    Stars! you nightly
    Sparkle brightly,
Scattered o'er your azure dome;
    While earth's turning,
    There you're burning,
Beacons of a better home.

    Stars! you brighten
    And you lighten
Many a heart-grief here below;
    But your gleaming
    And your beaming
Cannot chase away my woe.

    Stars! you're shining,
    I am pining --
I am dark, but you are bright;
    Hanging o'er me

When Death, or adverse Fortune's ruthless gale,
    Tears our best hopes away, the wounded Heart
    Exhausted, leans on all that can impart
    The charm of Sympathy; her mutual wail
How soothing! never can her warm tears fail
    To balm our bleeding grief's severest smart;
    Nor wholly vain feign'd Pity's solemn art,
    Tho' we should penetrate her sable veil.
Concern, e'en known to be assum'd, our pains
    Respecting, kinder welcome far acquires
    Than cold Neglect, or Mirth that Grief profanes.
Thus each faint Glow-worm of the Night conspires,
    Gleaming along the moss'd and darken'd lanes,
    To cheer the Gloom with her unreal fires.

June 1780.

Beyond the need of weeping,
Beyond the reach of hands,
May she be quietly sleeping,
In what dim nebulous lands?
Ah, she who understands!

The long, long winter weather,
These many years and days,
Since she, and Death, together,
Left me the wearier ways:
And now, these tardy bays!

The crown and victor's token:
How are they worth to-day?
The one word left unspoken,
It were late now to say:
But cast the palm away!

For once, ah once, to meet her,
Drop laurel from tired hands:
Her cypress were the sweeter,
In her oblivious lands:
Haply she understands!

Yet, crossed that weary river,
In some ulterior land,
Or anywhere, or ever,
Will she stretch out a hand?
And will she understand?

On the early and lamented death of George and Maggie Rosseaux, brother and sister, who died within one week of each other in the autumn of 1875. Young, beautiful and beloved, they were indeed lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.


Pace slowly, black horses, step stately and solemn--
One by one--two by two--stretches out the long column;
Pass on with your burden, the sound of our tears
    Will not reach the deaf ears.

Beneath the black shadow of funeral arches,
Stepping slow to the rhythm of funeral marches;
Pass on down the street where their steps were so gay,
    And so light, yesterday.

Where it seems if we turn we shall clasp them and hold them,
Our hands shall embrace--and our eyes shall behold them,--
So near are th...

The threadbare uniforms
we let stare at others
we would refuse ourselves.

The bare walls, misunderstanding,
Support nothing,
taut empty sounds.

The inclusion of everything
excludes nothing
except why it was done.