Works

DAWN

As though a gipsy maiden with dim look,
Sat crooning by the roadside of the year,
So, Autumn, in thy strangeness, thou art here
To read dark fortunes for us from the book...

Dead love, by treason slain, lies stark,
White as a dead stark-stricken dove:
None that pass by him pause to mark
Dead love.

His heart, that strained and yearned and strove...

God let me listen to your voice,
And look upon you for a space,
And then he took your voice away,
And dropped a veil before your face.
God let me look within your eyes,...

There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn,
One dark May night,
Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din,
With quaint delight,
It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do,
A phantom strain:...

He rode adown the autumn wood,
A man dark-eyed and brown;
A mountain girl before him stood
Clad in a homespun gown.

'To ride this road is death for you!
My father waits you there;...

There was a damned successful Poet;
There was a Woman like the Sun.
And they were dead. They did not know it.
They did not know their time was done.
They did not know his hymns...

I

From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart,
The substance of my dreams took fire.
You built cathedrals in my heart,
And lit my pinnacled desire.
You were the ardour and the bright...

He placed a rose in my nut-brown hair--
A deep red rose with a fragrant heart
And said: "We'll set this day apart,
So sunny, so wondrous fair."

His face was full of a happy light,...

All things have power to hold us back.
Our very hopes build up a wall
Of doubt, whose shadow stretches black
O'er all.

The dreams, that helped us once, become
Dread disappointments, that oppose...

How many of my selves are dead?
The ghosts of many haunt me: Lo,
The baby in the tiny bed
With rockers on, is blanketed
And sleeping in the long ago;
And so I ask, with shaking head,...

Only the prism's obstruction shows aright
The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light
Into the jewelled bow from blankest white;
So may a glory from defect arise:
Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreak...

Though care and strife
Elsewhere be rife,
Upon my word I do not heed 'em;
In bed I lie
With books hard by,
And with increasing zest I read 'em.

Propped up in bed,
So much I've read...

Shall one be sorrowful because of love,
Which hath no earthly crown,
Which lives and dies, unknown?
Because no words of his shall ever move
Her maiden heart to own...

Non domus et fundus, non aeris acervus et auri. - HOR.
Epist., I, ii, 47.

It was, my lord, the dexterous shift
Of t'other Jonathan, viz. Swift,
But now St. Patrick's saucy dean,...

The Dean would visit Market-Hill,
Our invitation was but slight;
I said - "Why let him, if he will:"
And so I bade Sir Arthur write.

His manners would not let him wait,...

"She has beauty, but still you must keep your heart cool;
"She has wit, but you mustn't be caught, so;"
Thus Reason advises, but Reason's a fool,
And 'tis not the first time I have thought so,
Dear Fanny....

"Dear Grif,
Here is a whiff
Of beautiful spring flowers;
The big red rose
Is for your nose,
As toward the sky it towers.


"Oh, do not frown
Upon this crown...

The touches of her hands are like the fall
Of velvet snowflakes; like the touch of down
The peach just brushes 'gainst the garden wall;
The flossy fondlings of the thistle-wisp...

Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,[1]
When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song!...

Dear heart, why will you use me so?
Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,
Still are you beautiful, but O,
How is your beauty raimented!

Through the clear mirror of your eyes,...