Works

The twilight reigns above the fallen noon
Within an ancient land, whose after-time
Lies like a shadow o'er its ruined prime.
Like rising mist the night increases soon...

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.
...

Along the graceless grass of town
They rake the rows of red and brown,
Dead leaves, unlike the rows of hay,
Delicate, neither gold nor grey,
Raked long ago and far away.
...

When the clock hath ceased to tick
Soul-like in the gloomy hall;
When the latch no more doth click
Tongue-like in the red peach-wall;
When no more come sounds of play,
Mice nor children romping roam,...

Ferdinand II entered Malebolge May 22nd, 1859.


Go down to hell. This end is good to see;
The breath is lightened and the sense at ease
Because thou art not; sense nor breath there is...

I

The South had saluted her mouth
Till her mouth was sweet with the South.

II

And the North with his breathings low
Made the blood in her veins like his snow.

III
...

O Rose! who dares to name thee?
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet;
But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat,
Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.
...

I could not dig; I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

I took a year out of my life and story -
A dead year, and said, "I will hew thee a tomb!
'All the kings of the nations lie in glory;'
Cased in cedar, and shut in a sacred gloom;...

Crushed with a burden of woe,
Wrecked in the tempest of sin:
Death came, and two lips murmured low,
"Ah! once I was white as the snow,
In the happy and pure long ago;...

I.


Dead in the sheep-pen he lies,
Wrapped in an old brown sail.
The smiling blue sea and the skies
Know not sorrow nor wail.

Dragged up out of the hold,
Dead on his last way home,...

"This is the State above the Law.
The State exists for the State alone."
[This is a gland at the back of the jaw,
And an answering lump by the collar-bone.],
Some die shouting in gas or fire;...

A death-blow is a life-blow to some
Who, till they died, did not alive become;
Who, had they lived, had died, but when
They died, vitality begun.

Beeny did not quiver,
Juliot grew not gray,
Thin Valency's river
Held its wonted way.
Bos seemed not to utter
Dimmest note of dirge,
Targan mouth a mutter
To its creamy surge.
...

The hut was built of bark and shrunken slabs,
That wore the marks of many rains, and showed
Dry flaws wherein had crept and nestled rot.
Moreover, round the bases of the bark...

[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene:
It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth,
Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek,
And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu:
Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest,...

The strong spring sun rejoicingly may rise,
Rise and make revel, as of old men said,
Like dancing hearts of lovers newly wed:
A light more bright than ever bathed the skies...

"O day! he cannot die
When thou so fair art shining!
O Sun, in such a glorious sky,
So tranquilly declining;

He cannot leave thee now,
While fresh west winds are blowing,...

What cometh here from west to east awending?
And who are these, the marchers stern and slow?
We bear the message that the rich are sending
Aback to those who bade them wake and know....

Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass,
Whah de branch 'll go a-singin' as it pass.
An' w'en I 's a-layin' low,
I kin hyeah it as it go
Singin', "Sleep, my honey, tek yo' res' at las'."
...