Mild is the parting year, and sweet
The odour of the falling spray;
Life passes on more rudely fleet,
And balmless is its closing day.

I wait its close, I court its gloom,
But mourn that never must there fall
Or on my breast or on my tomb
The tear that would have soothed it all.

I'd a dream last night of my boyhood's days,
And the scenes where my youth was spent;
And I roamed the old woods where the squirrel plays,
Full of frolicsome merriment.
And I walked by the brook, and its silvery tone,
Seemed to soothe me again as of yore;
And I stood by the cottage with moss overgrown
And the woodbine that trailed round the door.

No change could I see in the garden plot,
The flowers bloomed brightly around,
And one little bed of forget-me-not
In its own little corner I found.
The sky had a home-look, the breeze seemed to sigh,
In the strain I remembered so well,
And the little brown sparrows looked cunning and shy,
As though anxious some story to tell.

But as quietness reigned and a loneliness fell,
O'er the place that had onc...

(Athenaeum, October 21, 1848)


I did not chide him, though I knew
    That he was false to me.
Chide the exhaling of the dew,
    The ebbing of the sea,
The fading of a rosy hue, -
    But not inconstancy.

Why strive for love when love is o'er?
    Why bind a restive heart? -
He never knew the pain I bore
    In saying: 'We must part;
Let us be friends and nothing more.'
    - Oh, woman's shallow art!

But it is over, it is done, -
    I hardly heed it now;
So many weary years have run
    Since then, I think not how
Things might have been, - but greet each one
    With an unruffled brow.

What time I am where others be,
    My heart seems very calm -
Stone calm; but if all go from me,
    There c...

The embers were blinking and clinking away,
The casement half open was thrown;
There was nothing but cloud on the skirts of the Day,
And I sat on the threshold alone!

And said to the river which flowed by my door
With its beautiful face to the hill,
“I have waited and waited, all wearied and sore,
But my love is a wanderer still!”

And said to the wind, as it paused in its flight
To look through the shivering pane,
“There are memories moaning and homeless to-night
That can never be tranquil again!”

And said to the woods, as their burdens were borne
With a flutter and sigh to the eaves,
“They are wrinkled and wasted, and tattered and torn,
And we too have our withering leaves.”

Did I hear a low echo of footfalls about,
Whilst watchin...

As I walk the misty hill
All is languid, fogged, and still;
Not a note of any bird
Nor any motion's hint is heard,
Save from soaking thickets round
Trickle or water's rushing sound,
And from ghostly trees the drip
Of runnel dews or whispering slip
Of leaves, which in a body launch
Listlessly from the stagnant branch
To strew the marl, already strown,
With litter sodden as its own,

A rheum, like blight, hangs on the briars,
And from the clammy ground suspires
A sweet frail sick autumnal scent
Of stale frost furring weeds long spent;
And wafted on, like one who sleeps,
A feeble vapour hangs or creeps,
Exhaling on the fungus mould
A breath of age, fatigue, and cold.

Oozed from the bracken's desolate track,
By dark rains havock...

When sinks my heart in hopeless gloom,
And life can shew no joy for me;
And I behold a yawning tomb,
Where bowers and palaces should be;

In vain you talk of morbid dreams;
In vain you gaily smiling say,
That what to me so dreary seems,
The healthy mind deems bright and gay.

I too have smiled, and thought like you,
But madly smiled, and falsely deemed:
Truth led me to the present view,
I'm waking now, 'twas then I dreamed.

I lately saw a sunset sky,
And stood enraptured to behold
Its varied hues of glorious dye:
First, fleecy clouds of shining gold;

These blushing took a rosy hue;
Beneath them shone a flood of green;
Nor less divine, the glorious blue
That smiled above them and between.

I cannot name each lovely...

    'At last he is dead'
So the wondering, horror-struck neighbours said,
    A skilful touch of his knife
    Has cut the thread of a wasted life
He has reached the end of the downward road,
And rushed unbidden to meet his God,
    Over every duty past every tie,
Unwarned, unhindered, he rushed along,
Through the wild license of sin. and wrong,
    And into the silent eternity

Relax thy anguished watch, O wife
And fold thy hands--and yet--and yet,
After all the tears which thou hast wept,
Through nights when happier mortals slept,
Thou only wilt weep with fond regret,
Over the corpse of the hopeless dead
For the cause accursed, of drink he has bled,
For that cause he lived and suffered and died
Many deaths in one horrible life,--
The deat...

INGRATITUDE, how deadly is thy smart
    Proceeding from the Form we fondly love!
    How light, compared, all other sorrows prove!
    THOU shed'st a Night of Woe, from whence depart
The gentle beams of Patience, that the heart
    'Mid lesser ills, illume. - Thy Victims rove
    Unquiet as the Ghost that haunts the Grove
    Where MURDER spilt the life-blood. - O! thy dart
Kills more than Life, - e'en all that makes Life dear;
    Till we "the sensible of pain" wou'd change
    For Phrenzy, that defies the bitter tear;
Or wish, in kindred callousness, to range
    Where moon-ey'd IDIOCY, with fallen lip,
    Drags the loose knee, and intermitting step.

July 1773.

    I

    O wonderful and wingèd flow'r,
    That hoverest in the garden-close,
    Finding in mazes of the rose,
    The beauty of a Summer hour!

    O symbol of Impermanence,
    Thou art a word of Beauty's tongue,
    A word that in her song is sung,
    Appealing to the inner sense!

    Of that great mystic harmony,
    All lovely things are notes and words -
    The trees, the flow'rs, the songful birds,
    The flame-white stars, the surging sea,

    The aureate light of sudden dawn,
    The sunset's crimson afterglow,
    The summer clouds, the dazzling snow,
    The brooks, the moonlight chaste and wan.

    Lacking (who knows?) a cloud, a tree,
    A streamlet's purl, the ocean's roar
    From Nature's multi...

“Tired with all these, for restful death I cry.”
- SHAKESPEARE: Sonnet 66



Weary of erring in this desert Life,
Weary of hoping hopes for ever vain,
Weary of struggling in all-sterile strife,
Weary of thought which maketh nothing plain,
I close my eyes and calm my panting breath,
And pray to Thee, O ever-quiet Death!
To come and soothe away my bitter pain.

The strong shall strive, may they be victors crowned;
The wise still seek, may they at length find Truth;
The young still hope, may purest love be found
To make their age more glorious than their youth.
For me; my brain is weak, my heart is cold,
My hope and faith long dead; my life but bold
In jest and laugh to parry hateful ruth.

Over me pass the days and months and year...

Where had her sweetness gone?
What fanatics invent
In this blind bitter town,
Fantasy or incident
Not worth thinking of,
put her in a rage.
I had forgiven enough
That had forgiven old age.
All lives that has lived;
So much is certain;
Old sages were not deceived:
Somewhere beyond the curtain
Of distorting days
Lives that lonely thing
That shone before these eyes
Targeted, trod like Spring.

Soleasi nel mio cor star bella e viva.

SINCE HER DEATH, NOTHING IS LEFT TO HIM BUT GRIEF.


    She stood within my heart, warm, young, alone,
As in a humble home a lady bright;
By her last flight not merely am I grown
Mortal, but dead, and she an angel quite.
A soul whence every bliss and hope is flown,
Love shorn and naked of its own glad light,
Might melt with pity e'en a heart of stone:
But none there is to tell their grief or write;
These plead within, where deaf is every ear
Except mine own, whose power its griefs so mar
That nought is left me save to suffer here.
Verily we but dust and shadows are!
Verily blind and evil is our will!
Verily human hopes deceive us still!

MACGREGOR.


    'Mid life's bright glow ...

Io avrò sempre in odio la fenestra.

BETTER IS IT TO DIE HAPPY THAN TO LIVE IN PAIN.


    Always in hate the window shall I bear,
Whence Love has shot on me his shafts at will,
Because not one of them sufficed to kill:
For death is good when life is bright and fair,
But in this earthly jail its term to outwear
Is cause to me, alas! of infinite ill;
And mine is worse because immortal still,
Since from the heart the spirit may not tear.
Wretched! ere this who surely ought'st to know
By long experience, from his onward course
None can stay Time by flattery or by force.
Oft and again have I address'd it so:
Mourner, away! he parteth not too soon
Who leaves behind him far his life's calm June.

MACGREGOR.

They talk of short-lived pleasure, be it so,
Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace;
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease:
Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness:
Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release
His young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes, did it keep
A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

Brother, my thought of you
In this letter on a palm-leaf
Goes up about you
As her own scent
Goes up about the rose.

The bracelets on my arms
Have grown too large
Because you went away.

I think the sun of love
Melted the snow of parting,
For the white river of tears has overflowed.

But though I am sad
I am still beautiful,
The girl that you desired
In April.

Brother, my love for you
In this letter on a palm-leaf
Brightens about you
As her own rays
Brighten about the moon.

Love Poem of Cambodia.

To the heart of trusting childhood life is all a gilded way,
Wherein a beam of sunny bliss forever seems to play;
It roams about delightedly through pleasure's roseate bower,
And gaily makes a playmate, too, of every bird and flower;
Holds with the rushing of the winds companionship awhile,
And, on the tempest's darkest brow, discerns a brightening smile,
Converses with the babbling waves, as on their way they wend,
And sees, in everything it meets, the features of a friend.
"To-day" is full of rosy joy, "to-morrow" is not here:
When, for an uncreated hour, was childhood known to fear?
Not until hopes, warm hopes, its heart a treasure-house have made,
Like summer flowers to bloom awhile, like them, alas, to fade;
Cherished too fondly and too long, for ah! the rich parterre,
...

Lost Youth, come back again!
Laugh at weariness and pain.
Come not in dreams, but come in truth,
            Lost Youth.

Sweetheart of long ago,
Why do you haunt me so?
Were you not glad to part,
            Sweetheart?

Still Death, that draws so near,
Is it hope you bring, or fear?
Is it only ease of breath,
            Still Death?

I.

Gone, O gentle heart and true,
Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
Gone?

Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
When we gazed thereon.

Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
Gone?

II.

Friend of many a season fled,
What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
'Friend'?

Sighs and songs to blend
Praise with pain uncomforted
Though the praise ascend?

Darkness hides no dearer head:
Why should darkness end
Day so soon, O dear and dead
Friend?

III.

Dear in death, thou hast thy part
Yet in life, to cheer
Hearts that held thy gentle heart
Dear.

Time and...