Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet
    To shut our eyes and die:
Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by
    With flitting butterfly,
Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet,
Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high,
Nor sigh that spring is fleet and summer fleet,
    Nor mark the waxing wheat,
Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.

Life is not good. One day it will be good
    To die, then live again;
To sleep meanwhile: so not to feel the wane
Of shrunk leaves dropping in the wood,
Nor hear the foamy lashing of the main,
Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor where stood
    Rich ranks of golden grain
Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain:
Asleep from risk, asleep from pain.

Let me cradle myself back
Into the darkness
Of the half shapes...
Of the cauled beginnings...
Let me stir the attar of unused air,
Elusive... ironically fragrant
As a dead queen's kerchief...
Let me blow the dust from off you...
Resurrect your breath
Lying limp as a fan
In a dead queen's hand.

There is a long thin line of fading gold
    In the far West, and the transfigured leaves
    On some slight, topmost bough that sways and heaves
Hang limp and tremulous. Nor warm, nor cold
    The pungent air, and, 'neath the yellow haze,
    Show flushed and glad the wild, October ways.

There is a soft enchantment in the air,
    A mystery the Summer knows not, nor
    The sturdy, frost-crowned Winter. Nature wore
Her blandest smile to-day, as here and there
    I wandered, elf-beset, through wood and field
    And gleaned the glories of the autumn yield.

A bunch of purple aster, golden-rod
    Darkened by the first frost, a drooping spray
    Of scarlet barberry, and tall and gray
The silk-cored cotton with its bursting pod,
    Some tarnished m...

O shadowy Beauty mine, when thou shalt sleep
In the deep heart of a black marble tomb;
When thou for mansion and for bower shalt keep
Only one rainy cave of hollow gloom;

And when the stone upon thy trembling breast,
And on thy straight sweet body's supple grace,
Crushes thy will and keeps thy heart at rest,
And holds those feet from their adventurous race;

Then the deep grave, who shares my reverie,
(For the deep grave is aye the poet's friend)
During long nights when sleep is far from thee,

Shall whisper: "Ah, thou didst not comprehend
The dead wept thus, thou woman frail and weak"
And like remorse the worm shall gnaw thy cheek.

When writing to you, friend, a subject I'd find
In which there's both pleasure and profit combined,
And though what I've chosen may pain in review,
Yet still there's strange mingling of pleasure there too.
Then let us go back many years that are past,
And glance at those days much too happy to last.
I have seen thee, my friend, when around thy bright hearth
Not a seat was found vacant, but gladness and mirth
Kept high holiday there, and many a time
Were mingled in pastime my children with thine.
I've looked in again, the destroyer had come,
And changed the whole aspect of that happy home.
He entered that dwelling, and rudely he tore
From the arms of his mother, her most cherished flower.
Thy heart seemed then broken, oh! how couldst thou bear
To live in this...

When these eyes, long dimmed with weeping,
In the silent dust are sleeping;
When above my narrow bed
The breeze shall wave the thistle's head--
                    Thou wilt think of me, love!

When the queen of beams and showers
Comes to dress the earth with flowers;
When the days are long and bright,
And the moon shines all the night--
                    Thou wilt think of me, love!

When the tender corn is springing,
And the merry thrush is singing;
When the swallows come and go,
On light wings flitting to and fro--
                    Thou wilt think of me, love!

When laughing childhood learns by rote
The cuckoo's oft-repeated note;
When the meads are fresh and green,
And the hawthorn buds are seen--
                    Thou...

My friend, thou sorrowest for thy golden prime,
For thy fair youthful years too swift of flight;
Thou musest, with wet eyes, upon the time
Of cheerful hopes that filled the world with light,
Years when thy heart was bold, thy hand was strong,
And quick the thought that moved thy tongue to speak,
And willing faith was thine, and scorn of wrong
Summoned the sudden crimson to thy cheek.

Thou lookest forward on the coming days,
Shuddering to feel their shadow o'er thee creep;
A path, thick-set with changes and decays,
Slopes downward to the place of common sleep;
And they who walked with thee in life's first stage,
Leave one by one thy side, and, waiting near,
Thou seest the sad companions of thy age,
Dull love of rest, and weariness and fear.

Yet grie...

‘From that sky livid, bizarre
as your tortured destiny,
what thoughts fill your empty heart,
Freethinker, answer me.’

Insatiable and avid
for vague and obscure skies,
I’ll not groan like Ovid,
banned from Rome and paradise.

Skies, shores split and seamed,
my pride’s mirrored in you:
your clouds in mourning, too,

are the hearses of my dreams,
Hell’s reflected in your light,
where my heart takes delight.

Be pitiful, oh God! the night is long,
    My soul is faint with watching for the light,
    And still the gloom and doubt of seven-fold night
Hangs heavy on my spirit: Thou art strong.--
    Pity me, oh my God!

I stretch my hands through darkness up to Thee,--
    The stars are shrouded, and the night is dumb;
    There is no earthly help,--to Thee I come
In all my helplessness and misery,--
    Pity me, oh my God!

Be pitiful, oh God!--for I am weak,
    And all my paths are rough, and hedged about,--
    Hold Thou my hand dear Lord, and lead me out,
And bring me to the city which I seek,--
    Pity me, oh my God!

By the temptation which Thou didst endure,
    And by Thy fasting and Thy midnight prayer,
    Jesu! let me not utterly desp...

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eyelids close,
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceived, no thought expressed,
Only a sense of supplication;
A sense o'er all my soul impressed
That I am weak, yet not unblessed,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal strength and wisdom are.

But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me:
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorned, those only strong!
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning sti...

O Sweetheart, hear you
Your lover’s tale;
A man shall have sorrow
When friends him fail.

For he shall know then
Friends be untrue
And a little ashes
Their words come to.

But one unto him
Will softly move
And softly woo him
In ways of love.

His hand is under
Her smooth round breast;
So he who has sorrow
Shall have rest.

A picture memory brings to me
I look across the years and see
Myself beside my mother’s knee.

I feel her gentle hand restrain
My selfish moods, and know again
A child’s blind sense of wrong and pain.

But wiser now, a man gray grown,
My childhood’s needs are better known,
My mother’s chastening love I own.

Gray grown, but in our Father’s sight
A child still groping for the light
To read His works and ways aright.

I wait, in His good time to see
That as my mother dealt with me
So with His children dealeth He.

I bow myself beneath His hand
That pain itself was wisely planned
I feel, and partly understand.

The joy that comes in sorrow’s guise,
The sweet pains of self-sacrifice,
I would not have them otherwise...

No one was with me there -
Happy I was - alone;
Yet from the sunshine suddenly
A joy was gone.

A bird in an empty house
Sad echoes makes to ring,
Flitting from room to room
On restless wing:

Till from its shades he flies,
And leaves forlorn and dim
The narrow solitudes
So strange to him.

So, when with fickle heart
I joyed in the passing day,
A presence my mood estranged
Went grieved away.

My thoughts have borne me far away
To Beauties of an older day,
Where, crowned with roses, stands the DAWN,
Striking her seven-stringed barbiton
Of flame, whose chords give being to
The seven colours, hue for hue;
The music of the colour-dream
She builds the day from, beam by beam.

My thoughts have borne me far away
To Myths of a diviner day,
Where, sitting on the mountain, NOON
Sings to the pines a sun-soaked tune
Of rest and shade and clouds and skies,
Wherein her calm dreams idealize
Light as a presence, heavenly fair,
Sleeping with all her beauty bare.

My thoughts have borne me far away
To Visions of a wiser day,
Where, stealing through the wilderness,
NIGHT walks, a sad-eyed votaress,
And prays with mystic words she hears

Adieu to kindred hearts and home,
To pleasure, joy, and mirth,
A fitter foot than mine to roam
Could scarcely tread the earth;
For they are now so few indeed
(Not more than three in all),
Who e’er will think of me or heed
What fate may me befall.

For I through pleasure’s paths have run
My headlong goal to win,
Nor pleasure’s snares have cared to shun
When pleasure sweetened sin.
Let those who will their failings mask,
To mine I frankly own;
But for them pardon will I ask
Of none, save Heaven alone.

From carping friends I turn aside;
At foes defiance frown;
Yet time may tame my stubborn pride,
And break my spirit down.
Still, if to error I incline,
Truth whispers comfort strong,
That never reckless act of mine
E’er...

A thought ay like a flower upon mine heart,
And drew around it other thoughts like bees
For multitude and thirst of sweetnesses;
Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art
Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf and mart
Could lure those insect swarms from orange-trees
That I might hive with me such thoughts and please
My soul so, always. foolish counterpart
Of a weak man's vain wishes! While I spoke,
The thought I called a flower grew nettle-rough
The thoughts, called bees, stung me to festering:
Oh, entertain (cried Reason as she woke)
Your best and gladdest thoughts but long enough,
And they will all prove sad enough to sting!

Before I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!
In sleep I heard the northern gleams;
The stars, they were among my dreams;
In rustling conflict through the skies,
I heard, I saw the flashes drive,
And yet they are upon my eyes,
And yet I am alive;
Before I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!

My fire is dead: it knew no pain;
Yet is it dead, and I remain:
All stiff with ice the ashes lie;
And they are dead, and I will die.
When I was well, I wished to live,
For clothes, for warmth, for food, and fire;
But they to me no joy can give,
No pleasure now, and no desire.
Then here contented will I lie
Alone, I cannot fear to die.

Alas! ye might have dragged me on
Another day, a single one!
Too soon I yielded to despa...

    Look! look there!
Send your eyes across the gray
By my finger-point away
Through the vaporous, fumy air.
Beyond the air, you see the dark?
Beyond the dark, the dawning day?
On its horizon, pray you, mark
Something like a ruined heap
Of worlds half-uncreated, that go back:
Down all the grades through which they rose
Up to harmonious life and law's repose,
Back, slow, to the awful deep
Of nothingness, mere being's lack:
On its surface, lone and bare,
Shapeless as a dumb despair,
Formless, nameless, something lies:
Can the vision in your eyes
Its idea recognize?

    'Tis a poor lost soul, alack!--
Half he lived some ages back;
But, with hardly opened eyes,
Thinking him already wise,
Down he sat and wrote a book;
Drew h...