Works

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO E. J.


Experience, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand,
Whence harmonies, we cannot understand,...

Fought October 8th, 1862.


Here on this spot, where Nature now, with chilling, icy breath,
Has mantled in a robe of white the field of strife and death,...

My thanks, friends of the
County Scientific Association,
For this modest boulder,
And its little tablet of bronze.
Twice I tried to join your honored body,
And was rejected...

Afflictions they most profitable are
To the beholder and the sufferer:
Bettering them both, but by a double strain,
The first by patience, and the last by pain.

God strikes His Church, but 'tis to this intent,
To make, not mar her, by this punishment;
So where He gives the bitter pills, be sure
'Tis not to poison, but to make thee pure.

(Written for THE PORTFOLIO SOCIETY, January, 1862.

Subject given - "Light and Shade.")


She stepped upon Sicilian grass,
Demeter's daughter fresh and fair,
A child of light, a radiant lass,...

O Hades! O false gods! false to yourselves!
O Hades, 'twas thy brother gave her thee
Without a mother's sanction or her knowledge!
He bare her to the horrid gulfs below,...

Hast thou begun an act? ne'er then give o'er:
No man despairs to do what's done before.

What tho' th' claads aboon luk dark,
Th' sun's just waitin to peep throo;
Let us buckle to awr wark,
For ther's lots o' jobs to do:
Tho' all th' world luks dark an drear,
Let's ha faith, an persevere....

I am writing this song at the close
Of a beautiful day of the spring
In a dell where the daffodil grows
By a grove of the glimmering wing;
From glades where a musical word
Comes ever from luminous fall,...

My hopes retire; my wishes as before
Struggle to find their resting-place in vain:
The ebbing sea thus beats against the shore;
The shore repels it; it returns again.

O differing human heart,
Why is it that I tremble when thine eyes,
Thy human eyes and beautiful human speech,
Draw me, and stir within my soul
That subtle ineradicable longing
For tender comradeship?...

I

I am not One who much or oft delight
To season my fireside with personal talk.
Of friends, who live within an easy walk,
Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight:...

Then I asked: 'Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?'
...

Still must your hands withhold your loveliness?
Is your soul jealous of your body still?
The fair white limbs beneath the clouding dress
Are such hard forms as you alone could fill...

Day comes....

And when she sees the withering of the violet garden
And the saffron garden flowering,
The stars escaping on their black horse
And dawn on her white horse arriving,
She is afraid....

To Mrs. Montagu.


While, bending at thy honour'd shrine, the Muse
Pours, MONTAGU, to thee her votive strain,
Thy heart will not her simple notes refuse,
Or chill her timid soul with cold disdain....

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