One bright memory shines like a star
In the sky of my spirit forever;
And over my pathway it flashes afar
A radiance that perishes never.

One bright memory -- only one;
And I walk by the light of its gleaming;
It brightens my days, and when days are done
It shines in the night o'er my dreaming.

One bright memory, whose golden rays
Illumine the gloom of my sorrows,
And I know that its lustre will gladden my gaze
In the shadows of all my to-morrows.

One bright memory; when I am sad
I lift up my eyes to its shining,
And the clouds pass away, and my spirit grows glad,
And my heart hushes all its repining.

One bright memory; others have passed
Back into the shadows forever;
But it, far and fair, bright and true to the last,
Sh...

    Hereafter!    O we need not waste
        Our smiles or tears, whatever befall:
    No happiness but holds a taste
        Of something sweeter, after all; -
    No depth of agony but feels
        Some fragment of abiding trust, -
    Whatever death unlocks or seals,
        The mute beyond is just.

Dull to myself, and almost dead to these
My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
Lost to all music now, since everything
Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
Sick is the land to th' heart, and doth endure
More dangerous faintings by her desp'rate cure.
But if that golden age would come again
And Charles here rule, as he before did reign;
If smooth and unperplex'd the seasons were
As when the sweet Maria lived here;
I should delight to have my curls half drown'd
In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown'd.
And once more yet (ere I am laid out dead)
Knock at a star with my exalted head.

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.

Let no man pray that he know not sorrow,
    Let no soul ask to be free from pain,
For the gall of to-day is the sweet of to-morrow,
    And the moment's loss is the lifetime's gain.

Through want of a thing does its worth redouble,
    Through hunger's pangs does the feast content,
And only the heart that has harboured trouble
    Can fully rejoice when joy is sent.

Let no man shrink from the bitter tonics
    Of grief, and yearning, and need, and strife,
For the rarest chords in the soul's harmonics
    Are found in the minor strains of life.

O never laugh again!
Laughter is dead,
Deep hiding in her grave,
A sacred thing.
O never laugh again,
Never take hands and run
Through the wild streets,
Or sing,
Glad in the sun:
For she, the immortal sweetness of all sweets,
Took laughter with her
When she went away
With sleep.

O never laugh again!
Ours but to weep,
Ours but to pray.

Like a thorn in the flesh, like a fly in the mesh,
    Like a boat that is chained to shore,
The wild unrest of the heart in my breast
    Tortures me more and more.
I wot not why, it should wail and cry
    Like a child that is lost at night,
For it knew no grief, but has found relief,
    And it is not touched with blight.

It has had of pleasure full many a measure;
    It has thrilled with love's red wine;
It has hope and health, and youth's rare wealth -
    Oh rich is this heart of mine.
Yet it is not glad -it is wild and mad
    Like a billow before it breaks;
And its ceaseless pain is worse than vain,
    Since it knows not why it aches.

It longs to be, like the waves of the sea
    That rise in their might and beat
And dash and lu...

1.
Dar'st thou amid the varied multitude
To live alone, an isolated thing?
To see the busy beings round thee spring,
And care for none; in thy calm solitude,
A flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude
To Zephyr's passing wing?

2.
Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove,
Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother's hate,
Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate
As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love:
He bears a load which nothing can remove,
A killing, withering weight.

3.
He smiles - 'tis sorrow's deadliest mockery;
He speaks - the cold words flow not from his soul;
He acts like others, drains the genial bowl, -
Yet, yet he longs - although he fears - to die;
He pants to reach what yet he seems to fly,
Dull life's extre...

I came to you quietly when you were lying
In perfect midnight sleep.
Your dark soft hair was all about your pillow,
So black upon the white.
I could not see your face except the lovely
Curve of the pale cheek;
Your head was bent as though your stirless slumber
Was sea-like heavy and deep.
The wind came gently in at the wide window,
Shaking the candle-light
And shadows on the wall; and there was silence,
Or sound but far and weak.
By the bedside your daytime toys were gathered:
The bright bell-ringing wheel,
Dolls clad in violent yellow and vermilion,
Strings of gay-coloured beads....
But you were far and far from these beside you,
Entranced with other joys
In fresh fields, among other children running:
Your voice, I knew, must peal
Purely a...

Soul, dost thou fear
For to-day or to-morrow?
'Tis the part of a fool
To go seeking sorrow.
Of thine own doing
Thou canst not contrive them.
'Tis He that shall give them;
Thou may'st not outlive them.
So why cloud to-day
With fear of the sorrow,
That may or may not
Come to-morrow?

The park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,
The drowsy lights along the paths
Are dim and pearled.

Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights like sunken swords,
Glimmer and shake.

Oh, is it not enough to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
O, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love,
With youth, a singing voice, and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise?

Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied,
I, for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light,
I, for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
O beauty, are ...

The days have slain the days,
and the seasons have gone by
And brought me the summer again;
and here on the grass I lie
As erst I lay and was glad
ere I meddled with right and with wrong.
Wide lies the mead as of old,
and the river is creeping along
By the side of the elm-clad bank
that turns its weedy stream;
And grey o'er its hither lip
the quivering rushes gleam.
There is work in the mead as of old;
they are eager at winning the hay,
While every sun sets bright
and begets a fairer day.
The forks shine white in the sun
round the yellow red-wheeled wain,
Where the mountain of hay grows fast;
and now from out of the lane
Comes the ox-team drawing another,
comes the bailiff and the beer,
And thump, thump, goes the farmer's nag

Labor with what zeal we will,
    Something still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still
    Waits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,
    At the threshold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,
    Like a mendicant it waits;

Waits, and will not go away;
    Waits, and will not be gainsaid;
By the cares of yesterday
    Each to-day is heavier made;

Till at length the burden seems
    Greater than our strength can bear,
Heavy as the weight of dreams,
    Pressing on us everywhere.

And we stand from day to day,
    Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,
    On their shoulders held the sky.

    Now may we turn aside and dry our tears,
    And comfort us, and lay aside our fears,
    For all is gone, all comely quality,
    All gentleness and hospitality,
    All courtesy and merriment is gone;
    Our virtues all are withered every one,
    Our music vanished and our skill to sing:
    Now may we quiet us and quit our moan,
    Nothing is whole that could be broke; no thing
    Remains to us of all that was our own.

From the depths of the waters that lighten and darken
With change everlasting of life and of death,
Where hardly by noon if the lulled ear hearken
It hears the sea’s as a tired child’s breath,
Where hardly by night if an eye dare scan it
The storm lets shipwreck be seen or heard,
As the reefs to the waves and the foam to the granite
Respond one merciless word,
Sheer seen and far, in the sea’s live heaven,
A seamew’s flight from the wild sweet land,
White-plumed with foam if the wind wake, seven
Black helms as of warriors that stir not stand.
From the depths that abide and the waves that environ
Seven rocks rear heads that the midnight masks,
And the strokes of the swords of the storm are as iron
On the steel of the wave-worn casques.
Be night’s dark word as th...

(Art and Poetry [The Germ, No. 3], March 1850)


She sat alway thro' the long day
Spinning the weary thread away;
And ever said in undertone:
'Come, that I be no more alone.'

From early dawn to set of sun
Working, her task was still undone;
And the long thread seemed to increase
Even while she spun and did not cease.
She heard the gentle turtle-dove
Tell to its mate a tale of love;
She saw the glancing swallows fly,
Ever a social company;
She knew each bird upon its nest
Had cheering songs to bring it rest;
None lived alone save only she; -
The wheel went round more wearily;
She wept and said in undertone:
'Come, that I be no more alone.'

Day followed day, and still she sighed
For love, and was not satisf...

How long ago it is since we went Maying!
Since she and I went Maying long ago! -
The years have left my forehead lined, I know,
Have thinned my hair around the temples graying.
Ah, time will change us: yea, I hear it saying -
"She too grows old: the face of rose and snow
Has lost its freshness: in the hair's brown glow
Some strands of silver sadly, too, are straying.
The form you knew, whose beauty so enspelled,
Has lost the litheness of its loveliness:
And all the gladness that her blue eyes held
Tears and the world have hardened with distress." -
"True! true!" I answer, "O ye years that part!
These things are chaned - but is her heart, her heart?"

Never enlivened with the liveliest ray
That fosters growth or checks or cheers decay,
Nor by the heaviest rain-drops more deprest,
This Flower, that first appeared as summer's guest,
Preserves her beauty 'mid autumnal leaves
And to her mournful habits fondly cleaves.
When files of stateliest plants have ceased to bloom,
One after one submitting to their doom,
When her coevals each and all are fled,
What keeps her thus reclined upon her lonesome bed?

The old mythologists, more impressed than we
Of this late day by character in tree
Or herb, that claimed peculiar sympathy,
Or by the silent lapse of fountain clear,
Or with the language of the viewless air
By bird or beast made vocal, sought a cause
To solve the mystery, not in Nature's laws
But in Man'...