A breath                         A breath
   And a sigh, -                     And a sigh, - 
    How we fly                       How we fly
From Death!                      From Death! - 
                        
A palm                           Sing on
    Warm pressed,                    O our bird!
    As we guessed                    Thou art heard
Love's psalm.                    Alone.
                        
A word                           We know
    Breathed close,                  No life,
    And then rose                    Neither strife,
The bird                         Nor woe,
                        
That cowers                      Nor aught
    In the wood                      But this hour, - 
    'Mid a flood                     L...

"Glenara, Glenara, now read me my dream."
Campbell.

Father, I have dreamed a dream,
    When the rosy morning hour
Poured its light on field and stream,
    Kindling nature with its pow'r; -

O'er the meadow's dewy breast,
    I had chased a butterfly,
Tempted by its gaudy vest,
    Still my vain pursuit to ply, -

Till my limbs were weary grown,
    With the distance I had strayed,
Then to rest I laid me down,
    Where a beech tree cast its shade,

Soon a heaviness came o'er me,
    And a deep sleep sealed my eyes;
And a vision past before me,
    Full of changing phantasies.

First I stood beside a bower,
    Green as summer bow'r could be;
Vine and fruit, and leaf and flower,
    Mixed to weave its canopy....

Dull soul, to whom the battle once was sweet,
Hope, who had spurred your ardour and your fame
Will no more ride you! Lie down without shame
Old horse, who makes his way on stumbling feet.

Give up, my heart, and sleep your stolid sleep.

For you old rover, spirit sadly spent,
Love is no longer fair, nor is dispute;
Farewell to brass alarms, sighs of the flute!
Pleasures, give up a heart grown impotent!

The Spring, once wonderful, has lost its scent!

And Time engulfs me in its steady tide,
As blizzards cover corpses with their snow;
And poised on high I watch the world below,
No longer looking for a place to hide.

Avalanche, sweep me off within your slide!

He gloomily sat by the wall,
As gaily she danced with them all.
Her laughter's light spell
On every one fell;
His heartstrings were near unto rending,
But this there was none comprehending.

She fled from the house, when at eve
He came there to take his last leave.
To hide her she crept,
She wept and she wept;
Her life-hope was shattered past mending,
But this there was none comprehending.

Long years dragged but heavily o'er,
And then he came back there once more.
    - Her lot was the best,
    In peace and at rest;
Her thought was of him at life's ending,
But this there was none comprehending.

He gloomily sat by the wall,
As gaily she danced with them all.
Her laughter's light spell
On every one fell;
His heartstrings were near unto rending,
But this there was none comprehending.

She fled from the house, when at eve
He came there to take his last leave.
To hide her she crept,
She wept and she wept;
Her life-hope was shattered past mending,
But this there was none comprehending.

Long years dragged but heavily o'er,
And then he came back there once more.
    - Her lot was the best,
    In peace and at rest;
Her thought was of him at life's ending,
But this there was none comprehending.

Gravely it broods apart on joy,
And, truth to tell, amused by pain.

        Marvels of sleep, grown cold!
        Who hath not longed to fold
With pitying ruth, forgetful of their bliss,
        Those cherub forms that lie,
        With none to watch them nigh,
Or touch the silent lips with one warm human kiss?

        What! they are left alone
        All night with graven stone,
Pillars and arches that above them meet;
        While through those windows high
        The journeying stars can spy,
And dim blue moonbeams drop on their uncovered feet?

        O cold! yet look again,
        There is a wandering vein
Traced in the hand where those white snowdrops lie.
        Let her rapt dreamy smile
        The wondering heart beguile,
That almost thinks to hear a calm contented sigh.

        What s...

'Tis gone, with old belief and dream
That round it clung, and tempting scheme
Released from fear and doubt;
And the bright landscape too must lie,
By this blank wall, from every eye,
Relentlessly shut out.

Bear witness ye who seldom passed
That opening, but a look ye cast
Upon the lake below,
What spirit-stirring power it gained
From faith which here was entertained,
Though reason might say no.

Blest is that ground, where, o'er the springs
Of history, Glory claps her wings,
Fame sheds the exulting tear;
Yet earth is wide, and many a nook
Unheard of is, like this, a book
For modest meanings dear.

It was in sooth a happy thought
That grafted, on so fair a spot,
So confident a token
Of coming good; the charm is fled,

The summer day is closed, the sun is set:
Well they have done their office, those bright hours,
The latest of whose train goes softly out
In the red West. The green blade of the ground
Has risen, and herds have cropped it; the young twig
Has spread its plaited tissues to the sun;
Flowers of the garden and the waste have blown
And withered; seeds have fallen upon the soil,
From bursting cells, and in their graves await
Their resurrection. Insects from the pools
Have filled the air awhile with humming wings,
That now are still for ever; painted moths
Have wandered the blue sky, and died again;
The mother-bird hath broken for her brood
Their prison shell, or shoved them from the nest,
Plumed for their earliest flight. In bright alcoves,
In woodland cottages with ...

I dread that street its haggard face
I have not seen for eight long years;
A mother’s curse is on the place,
(There’s blood, my reader, in her tears).
No child of man shall ever track,
Through filthy dust, the singer’s feet
A fierce old memory drags me back;
I hate its name I dread that street.

Upon the lap of green, sweet lands,
Whose months are like your English Mays,
I try to hide in Lethe’s sands
The bitter, old Bohemian days.
But sorrow speaks in singing leaf,
And trouble talketh in the tide;
The skirts of a stupendous grief
Are trailing ever at my side.

I will not say who suffered there,
’Tis best the name aloof to keep,
Because the world is very fair
Its light should sing the dark to sleep.
But, let me whisper, in that st...

        Listen, children:
        Your father is dead.
        From his old coats
        I'll make you little jackets;
        I'll make you little trousers
        From his old pants.
        There'll be in his pockets
        Things he used to put there,
        Keys and pennies
        Covered with tobacco;
        Dan shall have the pennies
        To save in his bank;
        Anne shall have the keys
        To make a pretty noise with.
        Life must go on,
        And the dead be forgotten;
        Life must go on,
        Though good men die;
        Anne, eat your breakfast;
        Dan, take your medicine;
        Life must go on;
        I forget just why.

Yet when I am alone my eyes say, Come.
My hands cannot be still.
In that first moment all my senses ache,
Cells, that were empty fill,
The clay walls shake,
And unimprisoned thought runs where it will.

Runs and is glad and listens and doubts, and glooms
Because you are not here.
Then once more rises and is clear again
As sense is never clear,
And happy, though in vain
These eyes wait and these arms to bring you near.

Yet spite of thought my arms and eyes say, Come,
Pained with such discontent.
For though thought have you all my senses ache--
O, it was not meant
My body should never wake
But on thought's tranquil bosom rest content.

Is mine the part of no companion hand
Of help, except my shadow's silent self?
A moonlight traveller in Fancy's land
Of leering gnome and hollow-laughing elf;

Whose forests deepen and whose moon goes down,
When Night's blind shadow shall usurp my own;
And, mid the dust and wreck of some old town,
The City of Dreams, I grope and fall alone.

Night-dreams trace on Memory's wall
Shadows of the thoughts of day,
And thy fortunes, as they fall,
The bias of the will betray.

I like a look of agony,
Because I know it's true;
Men do not sham convulsion,
Nor simulate a throe.

The eyes glaze once, and that is death.
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the forehead
By homely anguish strung.

Take hands and part with laughter;
Touch lips and part with tears;
Once more and no more after,
Whatever comes with years.
We twain shall not remeasure
The ways that left us twain;
Nor crush the lees of pleasure
From sanguine grapes of pain.

We twain once well in sunder,
What will the mad gods do
For hate with me, I wonder,
Or what for love with you?
Forget them till November,
And dream there’s April yet;
Forget that I remember,
And dream that I forget.

Time found our tired love sleeping,
And kissed away his breath;
But what should we do weeping,
Though light love sleep to death?
We have drained his lips at leisure,
Till there’s not left to drain
A single sob of pleasure,
A single pulse of pain.

Dream t...

    Thou from the top of yonder antique tower,
    O lonely sparrow, wandering, hast gone,
    Thy song repeating till the day is done,
    And through this valley strays the harmony.
    How Spring rejoices in the fields around,
    And fills the air with light,
    So that the heart is melted at the sight!
    Hark to the bleating flocks, the lowing herds!
    In sweet content, the other birds
    Through the free sky in emulous circles wheel,
    In pure enjoyment of their happy time:
    Thou, pensive, gazest on the scene apart,
    Nor wilt thou join them in the merry round;
    Shy playmate, thou for mirth hast little heart;
    And with thy plaintive music, dost consume
    Both of the year, and of thy life, the bloom.

    Alas, how much my ways

Deep languor overcometh mind and frame:
A listless, drowsy, utter weariness,
A trance wherein no thought finds speech or name,


The overstrained spirit doth possess.
She sinks with drooping wing - poor unfledged bird,
That fain had flown! - in fluttering breathlessness.


To what end those high hopes that wildly stirred
The beating heart with aspirations vain?
Why proffer prayers unanswered and unheard


To blank, deaf heavens that will not heed her pain?
Where lead these lofty, soaring tendencies,
That leap and fly and poise, to fall again,


Yet seem to link her with the utmost skies?
What mean these clinging loves that bind to earth,
And claim her with beseeching, wistful eyes?


This little resting-place 'twixt...