s: Breathed, not labored, grown, not made--


s: And plumes that never waved with pride;--


s: Through this soft air, o'er this warm sod,


s: The woods their pride for centuries wear,


s: We all "uphold Adam's profession": we are all gardeners, either


s: Live in description and look green in song,


s: associated with ideas of earthly felicity.


s: And oh, if there be an Elysium on earth,


s: One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.


s: There is this much of poetical sensibility--of a sense of natural


s: And sweet-briar with its soft leaves shooting.


s: The exploit of strength, dexterity and speed


s: "It is not easy," observes Lord Kames, "to suppress a degree of


s: together? To attempt to exclude art--or even, the appearance of


s: 'Tis Nature still, 'tis nature methodized:


s: That in _trim_ gardens takes his pleasure.


s: construction of the dwelling and the flowing curves and wild but


s: These likewise mote be seen on every side


s: The shapely box, of all its branching pride


s: Ungently shorn, and, with preposterous skill


s: To various beasts, and birds of sundry quill


s: Transformed, and human shapes of monstrous size.


s: Also other wonders of the sportive shears


s: Fair Nature misadorning; there were found


s: Globes, spiral columns, pyramids, and piers


s: With spouting urns and budding statues crowned;


s: In living box, by cunning artists traced,


s: And galleys trim, or on long voyage bound,


s: But by their roots there ever anchored fast.


s: Who can impress the forest? Bid the tree


s: The Indian tree, whose branches downward bent,


s: The fig tree, not that kind for fruit renowned,


s: But such as at this day, to Indians known


s: Branching so broad and long, a pillared shade,


s: High over arched, and echoing walks between


s: There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,


s: Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds


s: At loop holes cut through the thickest shade those leaves,


s: They gathered, broad as Amazonian taige;


s: And with what skill they had together sewed,


s: I regret that it should have been deemed necessary to make stupid


s: Words that should only be said upon holidays,


s: ill-arranged, and tightly bound treasures of the parterre for the


s: If a lovely woman arranging the nosegays and flower-vases, in her


s: Veil'd in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood,


s: Half spied, so thick the roses blushing round


s: About her glow'd, oft stooping to support


s: Each flower of slender stalk, whose head, though gay,


s: Carnation, purple, azure, or speck'd with gold,


s: Hung drooping unsustain'd; them she upstays


s: Gently with myrtle band, mindless the while


s: Herself, though fairest unsupported flower,


s: From her best prop so far, and storm so nigh.


s: Nearer he drew, and many a walk traversed


s: Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm;


s: Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen,


s: Imborder'd on each bank, the hand of Eve


s: And Dryden, in his modernized version of the old poet, says,


s: And thrust among the thorns her lily hand


s: amuse themselves with switching off their lovely heads. "That's


s: To let all flowers live freely, and so die.


s: BAT (_Ficus indica_).--Is the Indian Banian tree, supposed to be


s: TU'LSI (_Ocymum_).--The Indian Basil, of which there are several


s: The HERON'S BILL, Erodium; the STORK'S BILL, Pelargonium; and the


s: The _Tooth-leaved Stork's bill_, P. denticulatum, is not a free


s: flowerer, but may with care be made to bloom in April.


s: _Culture_. Most kinds are rapid and luxurious growers, and it is


s: _Soil, &c._ A strong rich loamy soil is preferable, having a


s: The _Florence Iris_, I. florentina, _Ueersa_, is a large variety,


s: The LOBELIA is a brilliant class of flowers which may be greatly


s: _Soil, &c._--A moist, sandy soil is requisite for them, the small


s: In _size_ although of small estimation if the other qualities are


s: The PINK, Dianthus, _Kurunful_, is a well known species of great


s: The _Carnation_, D. caryophyilus, _Gul kurunful_, is by this time


s: The VIOLET, Viola, _Puroos_, is a class containing many beautiful


s: The _Dog's Violet_, V. canina, is also indigenous in the hills.


s: varieties, a few of which only have been found here.


s: _Soil, &c._--Loam and old leaf mould, or peat with a very small


s: _Propagation_ is exceedingly easy with each of the last named two


s: similarity, of the following general rules:--


s: _Propagation_.--Although some few will admit of other modes of


s: The _Poet's Narcissus_, N. poeticus, _Moozhan, zureenkuda_ is the


s: The CROCUS, Crocus lutens, having no native name, has yet, it is


s: The _Belladonna Lily_. A: belladonna is of moderately high stem,


s: It is only necessary to mention a few of these, as the curious in


s: The BROWALLIA, of two lauds, both pretty and interesting plants;


s: The STOCK, Mathiola, is a very popular plant, and deserves more


s: The _Chinese Hibiscus_, H rosa sinensis, _Jooua, jasoon, jupa_,


s: The SWEET PEA, Lathyrus odoralus, is not usually cultivated with


s: otherwise than destroy the plants placed beneath them.


s: The CLIMBING, and TWINING SHRUBS offer a numerous family, highly


s: deserving of cultivation, the following being a few of the most


s: The PASSION FLOWER, Passiflora, is a very large family of twining


s: Mignionette must be very carefully treated, kept moist, and every


s: Continue opening the roots of Bussorah roses, as well as the Rose


s: flower-garden, but the kitchen-garden and the orchard.]


s: THE TREE-MIGNONETTE.--This plant does not appear to be a distinct


s: bud.--_Gleenny's Hand Book of Gardening_.


s: But this requires alteration, or it is apt to communicate a baked


s: Ivory-black is mixed with the gum to produce a black colour; and


s: cinnabar or vermilion, to render the paste either brown or red.


s: With regard to the mode or state in which plants are preserved,


s: "After all we can do," Sir J.E. Smith observes, "plants dry very


s: Some of the finest _Florists flowers_ have been reared by the


s: Of Rail-Road travelling the reality is quite different from the


s: I allude here chiefly to the ryots of wealthy Zemindars and to


s: I have in some moods preferred the paintings of our own


s: Had Evelyn only composed the great work of his 'Sylva, or a


s: Discourse of Forest Trees,' &c. his name would have excited the


s: gratitude of posterity. The voice of the patriot exults in his


s: _Crisped knots_ are figures curled or twisted, or having waving


s: lines intersecting each other. They are sometimes planted in box.


s: breaking on the light green heads of the delicate little new-born


s: Why should we, in the compass of a pale,


s: Showing, as in a model, our firm estate?


s: When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,


s: Is full of weeds; her finest flowers choked up,


s: Her fruit-trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined,


s: Her _knots_ disordered, and her wholesome herbs


s: "We are unwilling to diminish or lose the credit of Paradise, or


s: The leaves of the willow, though green above, are hoar below.


s: See Mr. Loudon's most interesting and valuable work entitled


s: All the rules of gardening are reducible to three heads: the


s: contrasts, the management of surprises and the concealment of the


s: expressed them all in two verses (after my manner, in very little


s: In laying out a garden, the chief thing to be considered is the


s: The seat and gardens of the Lord Viscount Cobham, in


s: And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath


s: Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death:


s: Such in those moments as in all the past


s: "Oh, save my country, Heaven!" shall be your last.


s: Two hundred acres and two hundred millions of francs were made


s: Broome though a writer of no great genius (if any), had yet the


s: Pope came clean off with Homer, but they say,


s: Broome went before, and kindly swept the way.


s: The late Humphrey Repton, one of the best landscape-gardeners


s: that England has produced, and who was for many years employed on


s: Dorset, the grace of courts, the Muse's pride.


s: The Earl of Dorset, though but a poetaster himself, knew how to


s: This is generally put into the mouth of Pope, but if we are to


s: It has been said that in laying out the grounds at Hagley, Lord


s: Meantime you gain the height, from whose fair brow,


s: The bursting prospect spreads immense around:


s: And snatched o'er hill, and dale, and wood, and lawn,


s: And verdant field, and darkening heath between,


s: And spiry towns by surging columns marked,


s: Of household smoke, your eye excursive roams;


s: Wide stretching from the hall, in whose kind haunt


s: To where the broken landscape, by degrees,


s: O'er which the Cambrian mountains, like far clouds,


s: That skirt the blue horizon, dusky rise.


s: There is also at Hagley a complimentary inscription on an urn to


s: Coleridge is reported to have said--"There is in Crabbe an


s: relieved the languor of the last days of two great men, of very


s: different characters--Sir Walter Scott and Charles James Fox.


s: The poet had a cottage and garden in Kew-foot-Lane at or near


s: Shene or Sheen: the old name of Richmond, signifying in Saxon


s: On looking back at page 36 I find that I have said in the foot


s: Brown succeeded to the popularity of Kent. He was nicknamed,


s: Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,


s: Mrs. Stowe visited the Jardin Mabille in the Champs Elysées, a


s: Napoleon, it is said, once conceived the plan of roofing with


s: Addison in the 477th number of the _Spectator_ in alluding to


s: Kensington Gardens, observes; "I think there are as many kinds of


s: The river wanders at its own sweet will.


s: Horace Walpole in his lively and pleasant little work on Modern


s: This Palm-house, "the glory of the gardens," occupies an area of


s: "West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom.


s: The _rank of osiers_ by the murmuring stream,


s: Left on your right hand brings you to the place."


s: In Churton's _Rail Book of England_, published about three years


s: _One would have thought &c._ See the garden of Armida, as


s: "In lieto aspetto il bel giardin s'aperse &c."


s: "And, that which all faire works doth most aggrace,


s: "The art, which all that wrought, appearéd in no place."


s: Which is literally from Tasso, C, xvi 9.


s: "E quel, che'l bello, e'l caro accresce à l'opre,


s: "L'arte, che tutto fa, nulla si scopre."


s: _Flowers of all hue_, and without thorns the rose.


s: Beds of all various _herbs_, for ever green,


s: With nature, did an arber greene dispied_


s: This whole episode is taken from Tasso, C. 16, where Rinaldo is


s: "Stimi (si misto il culto e col negletto)


s: "Cujus in extremo est antrum nemorale necessu,


s: "Arte laboratum nulla, simulaverat artem


s: "Et lenibus tophis nativum duxerat arcum


s: "Fons sonat a dextra, tenui perlucidas unda


s: "Margine gramineo patulos incinctus hiatus"


s: _And fast beside these trickled softly downe.


s: Compare the following stanza in the continuation of the _Orlando


s: Innamorato_, by Nilcolo degli Agostinti, Lib. iv, C. 9.


s: "Ivi è un mormorio assai soave, e basso,


s: Che ogniun che l'ode lo fa addornientare,


s: L'acqua, ch'io dissi gia per entro un sasso


s: Vatti riposa, ormai sei stanco, e lasso,


s: Ne la dolce armonia par che ogn'un dica,


s: Deh vien, e dormi ne la piaggia, aprica,"


s: The oak was dedicated to Jupiter, and the poplar to Hercules.


s: _Sicker_, surely; Chaucer spells it _siker_.


s: What is the reason that an easterly wind is every where


s: No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows,


s: The dreaded east is all the wind that blows.


s: One sweet scene of early pleasures in my native land I have


s: Untouched by tender thoughts, and glimmering dreams


s: Of long-departed years? Lo! nature seems


s: The far blue hills--the smooth reposing sea--


s: The lonely forest--the meandering streams--


s: The farewell summer sun, whose mellowed beams


s: Illume thine ivied halls, and tinge each tree,


s: Whose green arms round thee cling--the balmy air--


s: The stainless vault above, that cloud or storm


s: 'Tis hard to deem will ever more deform--


s: The season's countless graces,--all appear


s: Perhaps some formal or fashionable wiseacres may pronounce such


s: Forth goth all the court, both most and least,


s: To fetch the flowres fresh, and branch and blome,


s: And namely hawthorn brought both page and grome,


s: And then rejoicing in their great delite


s: Eke ech at others threw the flowres bright,


s: With fresh garlants party blue and white.


s: The May-pole was usually decorated with the flowers of the


s: The _hawthorn bush_, with seats beneath the shade,


s: For talking age and whispering lovers made.


s: 'Tis a rich scene, and yet the richest charm


s: That e'er clothed earth in beauty, lives not here.


s: Winds no green fence around the cultured farm


s: _No blossomed hawthorn shields the cottage dear_:


s: The land is bright; and yet to thine how drear,


s: Unrivalled England! Well the thought may pine


s: For those sweet fields where, each a little sphere,


s: In shaded, sacred fruitfulness doth shine,


s: And the heart higher beats that says; 'This spot is mine.'


s: On May-day, the Ancient Romans used to go in procession to the


s: See what is said of palms in a note on page 81.


s: The word primrose is supposed to be a compound of _prime_ and


s: _rose_, and Spenser spells it prime rose


s: There's glory on thy _mountains_, proud Bengal--


s: The allusion to the cowslip in Shakespeare's description of


s: A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drop


s: The Guelder rose--This elegant plant is a native of Britain, and


s: Some flowers have always been made to a certain degree


s: The floral or vegetable language is not always the language of


s: The Hyacinth of the ancient fabulists appears to have been the


s: Our wild hyacinth, which contributes so much to the beauty of our


s: singularly inappropriate. The botanical name of the hyacinth is


s: Old Gerard calls it Blew Harebel or English _Jacint_, from the


s: Supposed by some to be Delphinium Ajacis or Larkspur. But no one


s: "A remarkably intelligent young botanist of our acquaintance


s: The learned dry the flower of the Forget me not and flatten it


s: The Abbé Molina in his History of Chili mentions a species of


s: The Dutch are a strange people and of the most heterogeneous


s: _The origin of the Daisy_--When Christ was three years old his


s: The Gorse is a low bush with prickly leaves growing like a


s: Leigh Hunt, in the dedication of his _Stories in Verse_ to the


s: The following account of a newly discovered flower may be


s: home-returning voyager with its familiar fragrance.


s: My Hindu friend is not answerable for the following notes.


s: In 1811 this plant was subjected to a regular set of experiments


s: It is perhaps of the Flax tribe. Mr. Piddington gives it the


s: Sometimes employed by robbers to deprive their victims of the


s: power of resistance. In a strong dose it is poison.


s: _Mirábilis jálapa_, or Marvel of Peru, is called by the country


s: Marvell died in 1678; Linnaeus died just a hundred years later.


s: These are the initial letters of the Latin names of the plants,


s: they will be found at length on the lower column.


s: Even Jeremy Bentham, the great Utilitarian Philosopher, who


s: A man of a polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures


s: Where Kent and nature strove for Pelham's love,


s: Pope in his well known paper in the _Guardian_ complains that a


s: flourishing on horseback at one end of the table and the Queen in


s: When the desire to subject nature to art had been carried to the


s: In England it costs upon the average about 12 shillings or six


s: rupees to have a tree of 30 feet high transplanted.


s: The height of a full grown banyan may be from sixty to eighty


s: feet; and many of them, I am fully confident, cover at least two


s: Alphonse Karr, bitterly ridicules the Botanical _Savants_ with


s: their barbarous nomenclature. He speaks of their mesocarps and


s: _The Hand of Eve_--the handiwork of Eve.


s: The ancient Greeks and Romans also married trees together in a


s: The root of this plant, (_Euphorbia ligularia_,) mixed up with


s: constipation in persons of delicate habit, especially European


s: The root is bitter, nauseous, and used in North America as


s: The native market gardens sell Madras roses at the rate of


s: I may add to Mr. Speede's list of Roses the _Banksian Rose_. The


s: He gains all points who pleasingly confounds,


s: Surprizes, varies, and conceals the bounds.


s: The following is the passage alluded to by Todd


s: With chant of tuneful birds resounding loud,


s: Thither he bent his way, determined there


s: To rest at noon, and entered soon the shade,


s: High roofed, and walks beneath and alleys brown,


s: Nature's own work it seemed (nature taught art)


s: The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay;--


s: Ah! see, whoso fayre thing doest faine to see,


s: In springing flowre the image of thy day!


s: Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly shee


s: Doth first peepe forth with bashful modesty;


s: That fairer seems the less you see her may!


s: Lo! see soone after how more bold and free


s: Her baréd bosome she doth broad display;


s: Lo! see soone after how she fades and falls away!


s: Of mortal life, the leaf, the bud, the flowre,


s: That erst was sought, to deck both bed and bowre


s: Gather therefore the rose whilest yet is prime


s: For soone comes age that will her pride deflowre;


s: Gather the rose of love, whilest yet is time


s: Whilest loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime


s: Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the


s: They called you sheep, the sky your sward,


s: Pale season, watcher in unvexed suspense,


s: Still priestess of the patient middle day,


s: And the warm wooing of green kirtled May,


s: Maid month of sunny peace and sober grey,


s: Weaver of flowers in sunward glades that ring


s: And joy, dream-tasted, hath the deepest cheer,


s: So art thou sweetest of all months that lease


s: The twelve short spaces of the flying year.


s: The bloomless days are dead, and frozen fear


s: No more for many moons shall vex the earth,


s: Dreaming of summer and fruit laden mirth.


s: The grey song-sparrows full of spring have sung


s: Their clear thin silvery tunes in leafless trees;


s: The silver-tasseled poplars the brown bees


s: Murmur faint dreams of summer harvestries;


s: A gold-green mist across the murmuring town.


s: By the slow streams the frogs all day and night


s: Dream without thought of pain or heed of ill,


s: Watching the long warm silent hours take flight,


s: And ever with soft throats that pulse and thrill,


s: From the pale-weeded shallows trill and trill,


s: Tremulous sweet voices, flute-like, answering


s: Strong horses labour, steaming in the sun,


s: Down the long furrows with slow straining toil,


s: Turning the brown clean layers; and one by one


s: The crows gloom over them till daylight done


s: Finds them asleep somewhere in duskèd lines


s: Beyond the wheatlands in the northern pines.


s: The old year's cloaking of brown leaves that bind


s: The forest floor-ways, plated close and true--


s: The last love's labour of the autumn wind--


s: Is broken with curled flower buds white and blue


s: In all the matted hollows, and speared through


s: With thousand serpent-spotted blades up-sprung,


s: Yet bloomless, of the slender adder-tongue.


s: In the warm noon the south wind creeps and cools,


s: Where the red-budded stems of maples throw


s: Still tangled etchings on the amber pools,


s: Drip of the taps, the troughs, and trampled snow,


s: The keen March mornings, and the silvering rime


s: Ah, I have wandered with unwearied feet,


s: Lulled with cool murmurs and the drowsy beat


s: Of partridge wings in secret thickets grey,


s: The marriage hymns of all the birds at play,


s: The faces of sweet flowers, and easeful dreams


s: Beside slow reaches of frog-haunted streams;


s: Wandered with happy feet, and quite forgot


s: The shallow toil, the strife against the grain,


s: Near souls, that hear us call, but answer not,


s: And high thoughts cankered with an earthly stain


s: And then the long draught emptied to the lees,


s: Mist of grey gnats that cloud the river shore,


s: Sweet even choruses, that dance and spin


s: Soft tangles in the sunset; and once more


s: The city smites me with its dissonant roar.


s: To its hot heart I pass, untroubled yet,


s: Fed with calm hope, without desire or fret.


s: So to the year's first altar step I bring


s: Gifts of meek song, and make my spirit free


s: With the blind working of unanxious spring,


s: Careless with her, whether the days that flee


s: Pale drouth or golden-fruited plenty see,


s: So that we toil, brothers, without distress,


s: In calm-eyed peace and godlike blamelessness.


s: One moment the slim cloudflakes seem to lean


s: And longing lips set downward brightening


s: To take the last sweet hand kiss of the king,


s: Gone down beyond the closing west acold;


s: Paying no reverence to the slender queen,


s: Hangs low in heaven, rounded toward sun,


s: Or the small stars that one by one unfold


s: Down the gray border of the night begun.


s: Breathers of wisdom won without a quest,


s: Quaint uncouth dreamers, voices high and strange,


s: Flutists of lands where beauty hath no change,


s: For whom glad days have ever yet to run,


s: But ever sunken half-way toward the west.


s: With close wrapt ears, it could not choose but seem


s: That earth, our mother, searching in what way,


s: Men's hearts might know her spirit's inmost dream,


s: Ever at rest beneath life's change and stir,


s: Made you her soul, and bade you pipe for her.


s: In those mute days when spring was in her glee,


s: And hope was strong, we knew not why or how,


s: And earth, the mother, dreamed with brooding brow.


s: Musing on life, and what the hours might be,


s: Then like high flutes in silvery interchange


s: Ye piped with voices still and sweet and strange,


s: The great buds swelled; among the pensive woods


s: The spirits of first flowers awoke and flung


s: From buried faces the close fitting hoods,


s: And listened to your piping till they fell,


s: The frail spring-beauty with her perfumed bell,


s: The wind-flower, and the spotted adder-tongue.


s: All the day long, wherever pools might be


s: Stood in a dream, as it were moorèd there


s: Or where the birds made riot of their glee


s: In the still woods, and the hot sun shone down,


s: Crossed with warm lucent shadows on the brown


s: Leaf-paven pools, that bubbled dreamily,


s: And watery marshes where the brooding noon,


s: Full with the wonder of its own sweet boon,


s: Nestled and slept among the noiseless reeds,


s: Ye sat and murmured, motionless as they,


s: With eyes that dreamed beyond the night and day.


s: And when, day passed and over heaven's height,


s: Thin with the many stars and cool with dew,


s: The fingers of the deep hours slowly drew


s: Or weight of silence ever brought to you


s: More high and solemn; slowly with hushed flight


s: Ye saw the echoing hours go by, long-drawn,


s: Nor ever stirred, watching with fathomless eyes,


s: And with your countless clear antiphonies


s: Filling the earth and heaven, even till dawn,


s: Last-risen, found you with its first pale gleam,


s: Still with soft throats unaltered in your dream.


s: Bound brain and spirit and half-closèd eyes,


s: In some divine sweet wonder-dream astray;


s: Grew strange and murmurous, faint and far away.


s: Morning and noon and midnight exquisitely,


s: Wrapt with your voices, this alone we knew,


s: Cities might change and fall, and men might die,


s: Secure were we, content to dream with you,


s: That change and pain are shadows faint and fleet,


s: And dreams are real, and life is only sweet.


s: And the still bright water is looking through,


s: The barges are ringing while day avails,


s: With sound of hewing and hammering nails,


s: Planing and painting and swinging pails,


s: For the waters brim over their wintry cup,


s: The ridge of the rapid sprays and skips:


s: On the rocks in the rain of the water falls,


s: The rivulets run and the cataract drones:


s: The spiders are flitting over the stones:


s: In the glory and power of thy summer tide


s: From plains that reel to southward, dim,


s: Long hours ago, while yet the morn was blithe,


s: Nor sharp athirst had drunk the beaded dew,


s: A reaper came, and swung his cradled scythe


s: Around this stump, and, shearing slowly, drew


s: Far round among the clover, ripe for hay,


s: And here among the scented swathes that gleam,


s: Mixed with dead daisies, it is sweet to lie


s: And watch the grass and the few-clouded sky,


s: For when the noon was turning, and the heat


s: Fell down most heavily on field and wood,


s: I too came hither, borne on restless feet,


s: Seeking some comfort for an aching mood.


s: The blind grey streets, the jingle of the throng,


s: Weary of hope that like a shape of stone


s: Sat near at hand without a smile or moan,


s: And those high moods of mine that sometime made


s: My heart a heaven, opening like a flower,


s: A sweeter world where I in wonder strayed,


s: Begirt with shapes of beauty and the power


s: Of dreams that moved through that enchanted clime


s: Were all gone lifeless now like those white leaves,


s: That hang all winter, shivering dead and blind


s: Ah! I will set no more mine overtaskèd brain


s: To barren search and toil that beareth nought,


s: The crossing pathways of unbournèd thought;


s: But let it go, as one that hath no skill,


s: An ant slow-burrowing in the earthy gloom,


s: Hither and thither o'er the rocking grass


s: The little breezes, blithe as they are blind,


s: Teasing the slender blossoms pass and pass,


s: And scarcely heed the daisies that, endowed


s: With stems so short they cannot see, up-bear


s: Their innocent sweet eyes distressed, and stare


s: Not far to fieldward in the central heat,


s: Shadowing the clover, a pale poplar stands


s: With glimmering leaves that, when the wind comes, beat


s: And with the calm, as in vague dreams astray,


s: Like sleepy mænads, who in pale surprise,


s: Half-wakened by a prowling beast, have crept


s: Out of the hidden covert, where they slept,


s: The crickets creak, and through the noonday glow,


s: In long-spun cadence, thin and dusty sere:


s: From the green grass the small grasshoppers' din


s: Into mine ears of toil that moves alway,


s: The crackling rustle of the pitch-forked hay


s: As so I lie and feel the soft hours wane,


s: To wind and sun and peaceful sound laid bare,


s: Fades off unseen, and shadowy-footed care


s: And gliding on, quite fashioned to forget,


s: From dream to dream I bid my spirit pass


s: Out into the pale green ever-swaying grass


s: And hour by hour among all shapes that grow


s: Of purple mints and daisies gemmed with gold


s: I feel and hear and with quiet eyes behold;


s: And hour by hour, the ever-journeying sun,


s: Into mine eyes and blood, and through the dim


s: Green glimmering forest of the grass shines down,


s: Till flower and blade, and every cranny brown,


s: Of the labour of men and their manifold hands,


s: Whose souls, that were sprung from the earth in her morning,


s: No longer regard or remember her warning,


s: Whose hearts in the furnace of care have forgotten


s: Forever the scent and the hue of her lands;


s: From the horrible crash of the strong man's feet;


s: Out of the clamour where beauty is lying,


s: Dead in the depth of the struggle for gold;


s: Out of the din and the glare of the street;


s: Our broad strong mother, the innocent earth,


s: Mother of all things beautiful, blameless,


s: Mother of hopes that her strength makes tameless,


s: And the whole world laughs with the light of her mirth.


s: Over the fields, where the cool winds sweep,


s: Black with the mould and brown with the loam,


s: Where the thin green spears of the wheat are appearing,


s: And the high-ho shouts from the smoky clearing;


s: Over the widths where the cloud shadows creep;


s: Over the fields and the fallows we come;


s: Over the swamps with their pensive noises,


s: Where the burnished cup of the marigold gleams;


s: Skirting the reeds, where the quick winds shiver


s: On the swelling breast of the dimpled river,


s: And the blue of the king-fisher hangs and poises,


s: Watching a spot by the edge of the streams;


s: By the miles of the fences warped and dyed


s: With the white-hot noons and their withering fires,


s: Where the rough bees trample the creamy bosoms


s: Of the hanging tufts of the elder blossoms,


s: And the spiders weave, and the grey snakes hide,


s: In the crannied gloom of the stones and the briers;


s: Over the meadow lands sprouting with thistle,


s: Where the humming wings of the blackbirds pass,


s: Where the hollows are banked with the violets flowering,


s: And the long-limbed pendulous elms are towering,


s: Where the robins are loud with their voluble whistle,


s: And the ground sparrow scurries away through the grass,


s: Where the restless bobolink loiters and woos


s: Down in the hollows and over the swells,


s: Of the dead trees soft in their sepulchres,


s: Where the pensive throats of the shy birds hidden,


s: And tenderly still in the tremulous glooms


s: The trilliums scatter their white-winged stars;


s: Up to the hills where our tired hearts rest,


s: Loosen, and halt, and regather their dreams;


s: Up to the hills, where the winds restore us,


s: Clearing our eyes to the beauty before us,


s: Earth with the glory of life on her breast,


s: Earth with the gleam of her cities and streams.


s: Here we shall commune with her and no other;


s: Care and the battle of life shall cease;


s: Only the might of her beauty shall bind us,


s: Full of rest, as we gaze on the face of our mother,


s: Earth in the health and the strength of her peace.


s: Along the waste, a great way off, the pines,


s: Like tall slim priests of storm, stand up and bar


s: The low long strip of dolorous red that lines


s: The under west, where wet winds moan afar.


s: The cornfields all are brown, and brown the meadows


s: With the blown leaves' wind-heapèd traceries,


s: And the brown thistle stems that cast no shadows,


s: As slowly earthward leaf by red leaf slips,


s: A soft strange inner sound of pain-crazed lips,


s: As if all leaves, that yet have breath, were sighing,


s: With pale hushed throats, for death is at the door,


s: Draw my coat closer with my numbèd hands,


s: And hear the ferns sigh, and the wet woods moan,


s: And send my heart out to the ashen lands;


s: And I will ask myself what golden madness,


s: What balmèd breaths of dreamland spicery,


s: What visions of soft laughter and light sadness


s: The dry dead leaves flit by with thin wierd tunes,


s: Like failing murmurs of some conquered creed,


s: Graven in mystic markings with strange runes,


s: That none but stars and biting winds may read;


s: But only still and very gray and dreary,


s: Through the dead leaves falling, falling,


s: With their hearts that love her, love her,


s: Sweet summer is gone; they have laid her away--


s: The last sad hours that were touched with her grace--


s: In the hush where the ghosts of the dead flowers play;


s: The sleep that is sweet of her slumbering space


s: Of the woe that hath fallen on all the lands:


s: The woods that are golden and red for a day


s: Like a girl's strange mirth, ere the quick death slay


s: The beautiful life that he hath in chase.


s: The yellow light lies on the wide wastes gray,


s: More bitter and cold than the winds that race,


s: From the skirts of the autumn, tearing away,


s: This way and that way, the woodland lace.


s: In the autumn's cheek is a hectic trace;


s: Behind her the ghost of the winter stands;


s: Sweet summer will moan in her soft gray place:


s: Mantle her head with your glowing hands.


s: Till the slayer be slain and the spring displace


s: The might of his arms with her rose-crowned bands,


s: Let her heart not gather a dream that is base:


s: The long days came and went; the riotous bees


s: Tore the warm grapes in many a dusty-vine,


s: And men grew faint and thin with too much ease,


s: But all the while beyond the northmost woods


s: He sat and smiled and watched his spirits play


s: With snowy curve and fairy crystal shine.


s: But now the time is come: with southward speed


s: Hath fallen and smitten flower and fruit and weed,


s: The wet woods moan: the dead leaves break and fall;


s: In still night-watches wakeful men have heard


s: The muffled pipe of many a passing bird,


s: Straining to southward with unresting wing.


s: And then they come with colder feet, and fret


s: The winds with snow, and tuck the streams to sleep


s: With curvèd drifts, and a strange music raves


s: Among the pines, sometimes in wails, and then


s: In whistled laughter, till affrighted men


s: And earthy holes the blind beasts curl and creep.


s: Of men's poor chimneys, full of impish freaks,


s: Tearing and twisting in tight-curlèd shreds


s: The Winter speeds his fairies forth and mocks


s: Turning the brown of youth to white and old


s: And grey men young with roses in their cheeks.


s: And after thaws, when liberal water swells


s: The bursting eaves, he biddeth drip and grow


s: Old warpèd wrecks and things of mouldering death


s: And when night comes, his spirits with chill feet,


s: Winged with white mirth and noiseless mockery,


s: Across men's pallid windows peer and fleet,


s: Draw with mute fingers on the frosted glass


s: Pale flowers and glinting ferns and frigid trees


s: Rustling among his snow-drifts, and resigns


s: Cold fondling ears to hear the cedars moan


s: Strange answers of an ancient runic call;


s: Or somewhere watches with his antique eyes,


s: In misty wedges through his girth of pines.


s: Poor mortals haste and hide away: creep soon


s: And on your frosted panes the pallid moon


s: Mutter faint prayers that spring will come e'erwhile,


s: Scarring with thaws and dripping days and nights


s: Upon his silvery lips, of glinting mockery.


s: Life is not all for effort: there are hours,


s: When fancy breaks from the exacting will,


s: And rebel thought takes schoolboy's holiday,


s: Rejoicing in its idle strength. 'Tis then,


s: The treasure of hours gone--scenes once beheld,


s: Sweet voices and words bright and beautiful,


s: Impetuous deeds that woke the God within us,


s: The loveliness of forms and thoughts and colors,


s: A moment marked and then as soon forgotten.


s: These things are ever near us, laid away,


s: Hidden and waiting the appropriate times,


s: Beneath the heated strainage and the rush


s: That teem the noisy surface of the hours,


s: All things that ever touched us are stored up,


s: Growing more mellow like sealed wine with age;


s: We thought them dead, and they are but asleep.


s: In moments when the heart is most at rest


s: And least expectant, from the luminous doors,


s: And sacred dwelling place of things unfeared,


s: Till then how potent and how real they were,


s: Take them, and wonder, and so bless the hour.


s: Such gifts are sweetest when unsought. To me,


s: Passing from one remembrance to another,


s: Like him who reads upon an outstretched map,


s: Out of that magic well-stored picture house,


s: No dream, rather a thing most keenly real,


s: Arrested and spell bound, and captured eyes,


s: Swept with the fire of sunset, all its width


s: With covered ears, for the bright air was keen,


s: To southward up the gleaming snow-packed fields,


s: With the snowshoer's long rejoicing stride,


s: In February, the month of the great struggle


s: 'Twixt sun and frost, when with advancing spears,


s: The glittering golden vanguard of the spring


s: Holds the broad winter's yet unbroken rear


s: In long-closed wavering contest. Thin pale threads


s: Like streaks of ash across the far off blue


s: Were drawn, nor seemed to move. A brooding silence


s: Kept all the land, a stillness as of sleep;


s: But in the east the grey and motionless woods,


s: Watching the great sun's fiery slow decline,


s: Grew deep with gold. To westward all was silver.


s: An hour had passed above me; I had reached


s: The loftiest level of the snow-piled fields,


s: Clear eyed, but unobservant, noting not,


s: That all the plain beneath me and the hills


s: Took on a change of color splendid, gradual,


s: Leaving no spot the same; nor that the sun


s: The great line of the west. Ere yet I turned


s: With the loose swinging motion, weary too,


s: Whose topmost log just shouldered from the snow,


s: Made me a seat, and thence with heated cheeks,


s: Grazed by the northwind's edge of stinging ice,


s: I looked far out upon the snow-bound waste,


s: The lifting hills and intersecting forests,


s: The scarce marked courses of the buried streams,


s: And as I looked lost memory of the frost,


s: Transfixed with wonder, overborne with joy.


s: I saw them in their silence and their beauty,


s: Swept by the sunset's rapid hand of fire,


s: Sudden, mysterious, every moment deepening


s: The whole broad west was like a molten sea


s: Of crimson. In the north the light-lined hills


s: Were veiled far off as with a mist of rose


s: Wondrous and soft. Along the darkening east


s: The gold of all the forests slowly changed


s: Low sunk in sapphire shadows, from its hills,


s: Softer and lovelier than an opening flower,


s: Uprose a city with its sun-touched towers,


s: Caught in the presence of some god, I stood,


s: Nor felt the keen wind and the deadly air,


s: But watched the sun go down, and watched the gold


s: Fade from the town and the withdrawing hills,


s: Their westward shapes athwart the dusky red


s: Freeze into sapphire, saw the arc of rose


s: Above the frore front of the uprearing night


s: Remorsefully soft and sweet. Then I awoke


s: As from a dream, and from my shoulders shook


s: The warning chill, till then unfelt, unfeared.


s: Out of the grey northwest, where many a day gone by


s: Ye tugged and howled in your tempestuous grot,


s: Your wizard guards in vigilance unforgot,


s: Out of the grey northwest, for now the bonds are riven,


s: On wide white wings your thongless flight is driven,


s: And all the grey day long, and all the dense wild night


s: Ye wheel and hurry with the sheeted snow,


s: By cedared waste and many a pine-dark height,


s: Over the lonely forests, where the flowers yet sleeping


s: Turn in their narrow beds with dreams of weeping


s: Across the unfenced wide marsh levels, where the dry


s: Brown ferns sigh out, and last year's sedges scold


s: In some drear language, rustling haggardly


s: Their thin dead leaves and dusky hoods of gold;


s: Across grey beechwoods where the pallid leaves unfalling


s: In the blind gusts like homeless ghosts are calling


s: Across the solitary clearings, where the low


s: Fierce gusts howl through the blinded woods, and round


s: The buried shanties all day long the snow


s: Sifts and piles up in many a spectral mound;


s: Across lone villages in eery wildernesses


s: Whose hidden life no living shape confesses


s: Across the serried masses of dim cities, blown


s: Full of the snow that ever shifts and swells,


s: While far above them all their towers of stone


s: Stand and beat back your fierce and tyrannous spells,


s: And hour by hour send out, like voices torn and broken


s: Of battling giants that have grandly spoken,


s: So day and night, oh wind, with hiss and moan you fleet,


s: Where once long gone on many a green-leafed day


s: Your gentler brethren wandered with light feet


s: And sang with voices soft and sweet as they,


s: The same blind thought that you with wilder might are speaking,


s: Seeking the same strange thing that you are seeking


s: Oh wind, wild-voicèd brother, in your northern cave,


s: With pride and pain, I heard you beat and rave,


s: Grinding your chains with furious howl and fret,


s: Knowing full well that all earth's moving things inherit


s: The same chained might and madness of the spirit,


s: You in your cave of snows, we in our narrow girth


s: Of need and sense, forever chafe and pine;


s: Our souls take fire, our flashing wings untwine;


s: Even like you, mad wind, above our broken prison,


s: With streaming hair and maddened eyes uprisen,


s: Mad moods that come and go in some mysterious way,


s: That flash and fall, none knoweth how or why,


s: Oh wind, our brother, they are yours to-day,


s: Deep in our narrow cells, we hear you, we awaken


s: With hands afret and bosoms strangely shaken,


s: I most that love you, wind, when you are fierce and free,


s: In these dull fetters cannot long remain;


s: Lo, I will rise and break my thongs and flee


s: Forth to your drift and beating, till my brain


s: Even for an hour grow wild in your divine embraces,


s: And then creep back into mine earthly traces,


s: Nay, wind, I hear you, desperate brother, in your might


s: Whistle and howl; I shall not tarry long,


s: And though the day be blind and fierce, the night


s: Be dense and wild, I still am glad and strong


s: To meet you face to face; through all your gust and drifting


s: With brow held high, my joyous hands uplifting,


s: By silent forest and field and mossy stone,


s: We come from the wooded hill, and we go to the sea.


s: We labour, and sing sweet songs, but we never moan,


s: For our mother, the sea, is calling us cheerily.


s: We have heard her calling us many and many a day


s: From the cool grey stones and the white sands far away.


s: The way is long, and winding and slow is the track,


s: The sharp rocks fret us, the eddies bring us delay,


s: But we sing sweet songs to our mother, and answer her back;


s: Gladly we answer our mother, sweetly repay.


s: Oh, we hear, we hear her singing wherever we roam,


s: Far, far away in the silence, calling us home.


s: Poor mortal, your ears are dull, and you cannot hear;


s: But we, we hear it, the breast of our mother abeat;


s: Low, far away, sweet and solemn and clear,


s: Under the hush of the night, under the noontide heat:


s: Dreaming, and dreaming, wherever the long way leads,


s: Of the far cool rocks and the rush of the wind and the spray.


s: Under the sun and the stars we murmur and dance and are free,


s: The point is turned; the twilight shadow fills


s: The wheeling stream, the soft receding shore,


s: And on our ears from deep among the hills


s: Breaks now the rapid's sudden quickening roar.


s: Ah yet the same, or have they changed their face,


s: The fair green fields, and can it still be seen,


s: The white log cottage near the mountain's base,


s: So bright and quiet, so home-like and serene?


s: Ah, well I question, for as five years go,


s: How many blessings fall, and how much woe.


s: Aye there they are, nor have they changed their cheer,


s: The fields, the hut, the leafy mountain brows;


s: The loitering bells, the lowing of the cows,


s: The bleat of many sheep, the stilly rush


s: Of the low whispering river, and through all,


s: Soft human tongues that break the deepening hush


s: With faint-heard song or desultory call:


s: Oh comrades hold; the longest reach is past;


s: The stream runs swift, and we are flying fast.


s: The shore, the fields, the cottage just the same,


s: But how with them whose memory makes them sweet?


s: Oh if I called them, hailing name by name,


s: Would the same lips the same old shouts repeat?


s: Have the rough years, so big with death and ill,


s: Gone lightly by and left them smiling yet?


s: Wild black-eyed Jeanne whose tongue was never still,


s: Old wrinkled Picaud, Pierre and pale Lisette,


s: The homely hearts that never cared to range,


s: While life's wide fields were filled with rush and change.


s: And where is Jacques, and where is Verginie?


s: I cannot tell; the fields are all a blur.


s: The lowing cows whose shapes I scarcely see,


s: Oh do they wait and do they call for her?


s: And is she changed, or is her heart still clear


s: As wind or morning, light as river foam?


s: Or have life's changes borne her far from here,


s: And far from rest, and far from help and home?


s: Ah comrades, soft, and let us rest awhile,


s: For arms grow tired with paddling many a mile.


s: The woods grow wild, and from the rising shore


s: The cool wind creeps, the faint wood odours steal;


s: Like ghosts adown the river's blackening floor


s: The misty fumes begin to creep and reel.


s: Once more I leave you, wandering toward the night,


s: Sweet home, sweet heart, that would have held me in;


s: Is faint before, and rest is hard to win.


s: Ah sweet ye were and near to heaven's gate;


s: But youth is blind and wisdom comes too late.


s: Blacker and loftier grow the woods, and hark!


s: The freshening roar! The chute is near us now,


s: The water whispering from the birchen prow.


s: One long last look, and many a sad adieu,


s: While eyes can see and heart can feel you yet,


s: I leave sweet home and sweeter hearts to you,


s: A prayer for Picaud, one for pale Lisette,


s: A kiss for Pierre, my little Jacques, and thee,


s: Oh, does she still remember? Is the dream


s: Now dead, or has she found another mate?


s: So near, so dear; and ah, so swift the stream;


s: Even now perhaps it were not yet too late.


s: But oh, what matter; for before the night


s: Has reached its middle, we have far to go:


s: Bend to your paddles, comrades; see, the light


s: Aye thus it is! Heaven gleams and then is gone


s: Once, twice, it smiles, and still we wander on.


s: Once on the year's last eve in my mind's might


s: Sitting in dreams, not sad, nor quite elysian,


s: Balancing all 'twixt wonder and derision,


s: Methought my body and all this world took flight,


s: And vanished from me, as a dream, outright;


s: Leaning out thus in sudden strange decision,


s: I saw as it were in the flashing of a vision,


s: Far down between the tall towers of the night,


s: Even as a glittering river with deep sound


s: Over the starry border glooms that bound


s: And all that strange unearthly multitude


s: Seemed twisted in vast seething companies,


s: That evermore with hoarse and terrible cries


s: Plunged onward, each in its implacable mood


s: Each following furiously, and each pursued;


s: So sped they on with tumult vast and grim,


s: But ever meseemed beyond them I could see


s: White-haloed groups that sought perpetually


s: The figure of one crowned and sacrificed;


s: And faint, far forward, floating tall and dim,


s: The banner of our Lord and Master, Christ.


s: With all dear things that ought to please


s: If any man, with sleepless care oppressed,


s: On many a night had risen, and addressed


s: His hand to make him out of joy and moan


s: An image of sweet sleep in carven stone,


s: Light touch by touch, in weary moments planned,


s: He would have wrought her with a patient hand,


s: Not like her brother death, with massive limb


s: And dreamless brow, unstartled, changeless, dim,


s: But very fair, though fitful and afraid,


s: More sweet and slight than any mortal maid.


s: Her hair he would have carved a mantle smooth


s: Down to her tender feet to wrap and soothe


s: All fevers in, yet barbèd here and there


s: With many a hidden sting of restless care;


s: Her brow most quiet, thick with opiate rest,


s: Yet watchfully lined, as if some hovering guest


s: Of noiseless doubt were there; so too her eyes


s: His light hand would have carved in cunning wise


s: Broad with all languor of the drowsy South,


s: Most beautiful, but held askance; her mouth


s: More soft and round than any rose half-spread,


s: Yet ever twisted with some nervous dread.


s: He would have made her with one marble foot,


s: Frail as a snow-white feather, forward put,


s: Bearing sweet medicine for all distress,


s: Smooth languor and unstrung forgetfulness;


s: One slender moonpale hand held forth to shed


s: Soft slumber dripping from its pearly tip


s: The cunning artist would have wrought her fair;


s: Shy goddess, at keen seeking most afraid


s: Yet often coming, when we least have prayed.


s: Something to keep for a charm in my heart--


s: Laughing she lay in the gold sun's might,


s: In her little soft fingers, round and white,


s: Laughing she lay on the stone that stands


s: For a rough-hewn step in that sunny place,


s: And her yellow hair hung down to her hands,


s: Her eyes like the blue of the sky, made dim


s: With the might of the sun that looked at her,


s: When the petals are withered and gone, shall be


s: That a tender dream of her face may rise


s: Of her sunny hair and her beautiful eyes,


s: No girdle hath weaver or goldsmith wrought


s: Than her eyes, when they answer me liquidly.


s: And doubt like a shimmer on sand shall be,


s: In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.


s: Sweet mouth, that the wear of the world hath taught


s: More soft than a cloud in the sunset caught,


s: To kiss it and cling to it early and late


s: Shall make sweet minutes of days that flee,


s: Rich hair that a painter of old had sought


s: Most fair when the streams of it run distraught


s: Of cheeks and lips that are one and free,


s: For the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.


s: So time shall be swift till thou mate with me,


s: And none shall be happier, Love, than we,


s: With tears, and know not it is dark despair.


s: That love is sweet? It is not sweet to me.


s: So sweet, so true, and yet it could not be!


s: It was so true, it could not make him know:


s: Oh, had he known, would he have hurt me so?


s: Pondering, and with his dagger whittled chips;


s: And one drew near to him with austere lips,


s: Saying, "To-morrow is Monday," and at that


s: The king said nothing, but held forth his flat


s: Broad palm, and bending on his mighty hips,


s: Took up and mutely laid thereon the slips


s: Of scattered wood, as on a hearth, and gat


s: From off the embers near, a burning brand.


s: Kindling the pile with this, the dreaming Dane


s: Sat silent with his eyes set and his bland


s: Proud mouth, tight-woven, smiling, drawn with pain,


s: Watching the fierce fire flare, and wax, and wane,


s: Hiss and burn down upon his shrivelled hand.


s: The King's son walks in the garden fair--


s: That the bride is gone and the bower is bare.


s: The sun shines bright through the casement high--


s: The little handmaid, with a laughing eye,


s: Looks down on the king's son, strolling by.


s: "He little knows that the bride is gone,


s: She is fled with her lover afar last night,


s: And back to her chamber with velvety step


s: And a gold key took from her bosom sweet,


s: The glad white raiment her beauty bound,


s: And round and round her white neck she flung


s: And down the stairway and out of the door


s: The King's son walked in the garden fair,


s: Through the midst of a shimmer of roses red,


s: The King's son marvelled, his heart leaped up,


s: "For, North or South, I have never beheld


s: "And dost thou love me?" the little maid cried,


s: And the King's son took her with both his hands,


s: And the little maid laughed till the beaded tears,


s: "O foolish King's son!" and she clapped her hands,


s: "O King's son, foolish and fooled art thou,


s: Thy bride is away with her lover last night,


s: And the King's son sware a great oath, said he,--


s: "If the Earl's fair daughter a traitress be,


s: The King's son walks in the garden fair--


s: And the little handmaiden walketh there,


s: But the old Earl pulleth his beard for care.


s: All day, all day, round the clacking net


s: Without is a horror of hosts that fight,


s: The thunder of feet and the cry of flight,


s: Gray dreams are set in the weaver's sight,


s: "Come away, dear soul, come away, or we die;


s: Hear'st thou the moan and the rush! Come away;


s: The people are slain at the gates, and they fly;


s: The battle-axe cleaves, and the foemen cry,


s: "Nay, wife, what boots it to fly from pain,


s: And death is a sweeter thing than a chain:


s: And the weaver wove, and the good wife fled,


s: And a flame that shook from the rocks overhead


s: And touched like a wide red kiss on the dead


s: Yet I think that in some dim shadowy land,


s: Where the ghost of a whilom loom doth stand


s: In days, when the fruit of men's labour was sparing,


s: And hearts were weary and nigh to break,


s: A sweet grave man with a beautiful bearing


s: Came to us once in the fields and spake.


s: He told us of Roma, the marvellous city,


s: And of One that came from the living God,


s: The new was strong, and the old nigh dead,


s: And love was more than a bare word spoken,


s: For the sick were healed and the poor were fed;


s: And we sat mute at his feet, and hearkened:


s: The grave man came in an hour; and went,


s: But a new light shone on a land long darkened;


s: The toil was weary, the fruit was spent:


s: Till we saw from the hills in a dazzled coma


s: Over the vines that the wind made shiver,


s: And we stood long in a dream and waited,


s: Mantled in skins and crowned with flowers,


s: And one, that ran in the midst, came near us--


s: "Crown yourselves for the feast," he said,


s: But we cried out, that the God might hear us,


s: And they took us each by the hand with laughter;


s: Their eyes were haggard and red with wine:


s: They haled us on, and we followed after,


s: "We will show you the new God's shrine."


s: Ah, woe to our tongues, that, forever unsleeping,


s: The soothing ash from the embers sweeping,


s: Wherever the soles of our sad feet fare.


s: Ah, we were simple of mind, not knowing,


s: How dreadful the heart of a man might be;


s: But the knowledge of evil is mighty of growing;


s: We came to a garden of beauty and pleasure--


s: It was not the way that our own feet chose--


s: Where a revel was whirling in many a measure,


s: And the myriad roar of a great crowd rose;


s: And the midmost round of the garden was reddened


s: With pillars of fire in a great high ring--


s: One look--and our souls forever were deadened,


s: Though our feet yet move, and our dreams yet sting;


s: For we saw that each was a live man flaming,


s: And a thing of horror was done, past naming,


s: And the crowd spun round, and we saw no more.


s: And he that ran in the midst, descrying,


s: And smote us each and the other, crying,


s: "The Cæsar comes, and the people's pæans


s: And we fell down to the earth, and sickened,


s: "Where is He, whom the good God quickened?


s: Yet ever we heard, in the foul mirth turning,


s: And ever the yells of the charred men burning,


s: And we lay there, till the frightful revel


s: Shadows, that fell from the blackened bones.


s: We crept in the dawn from the awful city,


s: The great sun came from the sea before us;


s: A soft wind blew from the scented south;


s: But our eyes knew not of the steps that bore us


s: And we prayed then, as we turned our faces


s: That our ways might be in the fierce bare places,


s: Where never the foot of a live man trod:


s: For the sea was cold, but the land was flame:


s: And the keen ship sped, and a deadly coma


s: Out of the Northland sombre weirds are calling;


s: Sad summer's arms grow cold; his fire is falling;


s: His feet draw back to give the stern one way.


s: It is the voice and shadow of the slayer,


s: Slayer of loves, sweet world, slayer of dreams;


s: Make sad thy voice with sober plaint and prayer;


s: Make gray thy woods, and darken all thy streams.


s: Black grows the river, blacker drifts the eddy:


s: The sky is grey; the woods are cold below:


s: Oh make thy bosom, and thy sad lips ready,


s: For the cold kisses of the folding snow.


s: Marks of where the nails pierced through,


s: And please himself with fluted reveries;


s: Took sound and form upon the ivory keys;


s: A little maid that stood beside him there.


s: And little features, very sweet and spare.


s: And heard the music sounding sweet and clear;


s: His hand across his forehead dreamingly;


s: "Oh, master, teach me; I will slave for thee!"


s: Deepened upon her tender cheeks untried.


s: Fell yearly richer at the master's side.


s: "How beautiful she is?" and bent his head;


s: And lean and listen for her velvet tread;


s: For day by day more wondrously he played.


s: Such heavenly things the master wrought,


s: The organ's self did love the gold-haired maid:


s: And took his hands, and held them eagerly.


s: "You love him, then?" "I love him well,"


s: Upon his eyes and all his heart that bled.


s: And he sat still, as moveless as a stone.


s: Along the shadowy aisle the moonlight shone.


s: In broken moanings down the shadows drear;


s: Through all the windows wonderful and clear.


s: The master hath a noble mood," they said.


s: And on the keys they found his fallen head.


s: Upon the midnight's tingling silentness,


s: Where Nino sits before his book and broods,


s: Thin and brow-burdened with some fine distress,


s: Some gloom that hangs about his mournful moods


s: Sorrow's pale miser o'er his hoard of grief.


s: And they were young with hearts already set


s: Wherefore it seemed they never could forget


s: That winning touch, that one bewildering glance:


s: But found at last a shelter safe and sweet,


s: Where trembling hearts and longing hands might meet.


s: Ah, sweet their dreams, and sweet the life they led


s: With that great love that was their bosoms' all,


s: Yet ever shadowed by some circling dread


s: It gloomed at moments deep and tragical,


s: And so for many a month they seemed to tread


s: With fluttering hearts, whatever might befall,


s: Half glad, half sad, their sweet and secret way


s: To the soft tune of some old lover's lay.


s: But she is gone, alas he knows not where,


s: Or how his life that tender gift should lose:


s: The hasty joys and griefs of him who woos,


s: Where sweet success is neighbour to despair,


s: With stolen looks and dangerous interviews:


s: But one long week she came not, nor the next,


s: And so he wandered here and there perplext;


s: He sought her at their trysts, devised deep schemes


s: To lure her back, and fell on subtle ways


s: To win some word of her; but all his dreams


s: Vanished like smoke, and then in sore amaze


s: From town to town, as one that crazèd seems,


s: Uncertain clues that ended like the rest.


s: And now this midnight, as he sits forlorn,


s: The printed page for him no meaning bears;


s: With every word some torturing dream is born;


s: And every thought is like a step that scares


s: Old memories up to make him weep and mourn.


s: He cannot turn but from their latchless lairs,


s: Rise up like dusk birds through the lonely night.


s: And still with questions vain he probes his grief,


s: Till thought is wearied out, and dreams grow dim.


s: What bitter chance, what woe beyond belief


s: Could keep his lady's heart so hid from him?


s: Or was her love indeed but light and brief,


s: A passing thought, a moment's dreamy whim?


s: Aye there it stings, the woe that never sleeps:


s: Poor Nino leans upon his book, and weeps.


s: Until at length the sudden grief that shook


s: And laid full weary on the wide-spread book,


s: His eyes grow dim with slumber light and fast;


s: But scarcely have his dreams had time to look


s: On lands of kindlier promise, when aghast


s: He starts up softly, and in wondering wise


s: What sound was that? Who knocks like one in dread


s: With such swift hands upon his outer door?


s: Or questing traveller with confusèd tread,


s: Straying, bewildered in the midnight hoar.


s: The dreams still pale about his burdened brow.


s: A stranger enters with slow steps, unsought,


s: A long robed monk, and in his hand he bears


s: But of his face beneath the cowl he wears


s: For all his searching Nino seeth nought;


s: And slowly past him with long stride he hies,


s: While Nino follows with bewildered eyes.


s: Straight on he goes with dusky rustling gown.


s: His steps are soft, his hands are white and fine;


s: And still he bears the goblet on whose crown


s: Falls with dark stain the rich and lustrous wine,


s: Wherefrom through all the chamber's shadowy deeps


s: And now he sets it down with careful hands


s: And for a space as if in dreams he stands,


s: From her who loved thee, while she lived, too well."


s: The stranger's voice falls slow and solemnly.


s: Tis soft, and rich, and wondrous deep of tone;


s: Listening fast-rooted like a shape of stone.


s: Ah, blessed saints, can such a dark thing be?


s: Oh, love is harsh, and life is frail indeed,


s: That gives men joy, and then so makes them bleed.


s: "There is the gift I bring"; the stranger's head


s: Turns to the cup that glitters at his side:


s: "And now my tongue draws back for very dread,


s: Unhappy youth, from what it must not hide.


s: The saddest tale that ever lips have said;


s: Yet thou must know how sweet Leonora died,


s: And left this gift for thee to leave or take."


s: Poor Nino listens with that marble face,


s: And eyes that move not, strangely wide and set.


s: The monk continues with his mournful grace:


s: In secret, and your plighted loves kept pace


s: Your dream's dark danger and its dread you knew,


s: And still you met, and still your passion grew.


s: "And aye with that luxurious fire you fed


s: Your dangerous longing daily, crumb by crumb;


s: Nor ever cared that still above your head


s: You knew full keenly you could never wed:


s: 'Twas all a dream: the end must surely come;


s: For not on thee her father's eyes were turned


s: To find a son, when mighty lords were spurned.


s: "Thou knowest that new-sprung prince, that proud up-start,


s: Pisa's new tyrant with his armèd thralls,


s: Who bends of late to take the people's part,


s: Yet plays the king among his marble halls,


s: Frowns like a fortress with its loop-holed walls.


s: 'Twas him he sought for fair Leonora's hand,


s: That so his own declining house might stand.


s: "The end came soon; 'twas never known to thee;


s: But, when your love was scarce a six months old,


s: She sat one day beside her father's knee,


s: And in her ears the dreadful thing was told.


s: Within one month her bridal hour should be


s: With Messer Gianni for his power and gold;


s: And as she sat with whitened lips the while,


s: The old man kissed her, with his crafty smile.


s: Thou, wretched Nino, thou alone canst know.


s: Down at his feet with many a moan she knelt,


s: And prayed that he would never wound her so.


s: Ah, tender saints! it was a sight to melt


s: The flintiest heart; but his could never glow.


s: He sat with clenchèd hands and straightened head,


s: And frowned, and glared, and turned from white to red.


s: "And still with cries about his knees she clung,


s: His words were brief, with bitter fury flung:


s: 'The father's will the child must meekly bear;


s: I am thy father, thou a girl and young.'


s: Then to her feet she rose in her despair,


s: And cried with tightened lips and eyes aglow,


s: One daring word, a straight and simple, "No"!


s: "Her father left her with wild words, and sent


s: Rough men, who dragged her to a dungeon deep,


s: Where many a weary soul in darkness pent


s: For many a year had watched the slow days creep,


s: And there he left her for his dark intent,


s: Where madness breeds and sorrows never sleep.


s: Coarse robes he gave her, and her lips he fed


s: "And day by day still following out his plan,


s: He came to her, and with determined spite


s: Strove with soft words and then with curse and ban


s: To bend her heart so wearied to his might,


s: And aye she bode his bitter pleasure's span,


s: As one that hears, but hath not sense or sight.


s: Ah, Nino, still her breaking heart held true:


s: Poor lady sad, she had no thought but you.


s: "The father tired at last and came no more,


s: The marriage feast with all luxurious store,


s: With pomps, and shows and splendors rich and rare;


s: Nor knew she aught what things were in the air,


s: Till came the old lord's message brief and coarse:


s: Within three days she should be wed by force.


s: "And all that noon and weary night she lay,


s: Poor child, like death upon her prison stone,


s: And none that came to her but crept away,


s: Sickened at heart to see her lips so moan,


s: Her eyes so dim within their sockets grey,


s: Her tender cheeks so thin and ghastly grown;


s: But when the next morn's light began to stir,


s: She sent and prayed that I might be with her.


s: "This boon he gave: perchance he deemed that I,


s: The chaplain of his house, her childhood's friend,


s: With patient tones and holy words, might try


s: To soothe her purpose to his gainful end.


s: But knew my heart had no base help to lend.


s: That night with many a silent prayer I came


s: "But she was strange to me: I could not speak


s: For glad amazement, mixed with some dark fear;


s: I saw her stand no longer pale and weak,


s: But a proud maiden, queenly and most clear,


s: With flashing eyes and vermeil in her cheek:


s: I marked two goblets of rare workmanship


s: With some strange liquor crownèd to the lip.


s: "And then she ran to me and caught my hand,


s: And like the ghost of sorrow she did stand,


s: 'Oh father, grant, I pray thee, I command,


s: Dear father, grant, and bind it with an oath.'


s: "This granted I, and then with many a wail


s: And when she finished, lightly but most pale,


s: To those two brimming goblets she did go,


s: And one she took within her fingers frail,


s: And looked down smiling in its crimson glow:


s: 'And now thine oath I'll tell; God grant to thee


s: No rest in grave, if thou be false to me.


s: "'Alas, poor me! whom cruel hearts would wed


s: But I'll not go; nay, rather I'll be dead,


s: Safe from their frown and from their bitter word.


s: In this drear world, so weary and perplext,


s: We'll die, and win sweet pleasure in the next.


s: "'Oh father, God will never give thee rest,


s: If thou be false to what thy lips have sworn,


s: And false to love, and false to me distressed,


s: This cup--she put it softly to her breast--


s: To Nino's hand, and tell him all my pain;


s: This other with mine own lips I will drain.'


s: "Slowly she raised it to her lips, the while


s: Her dreadful hands, but with a sudden wile


s: She twisted and sprang from me with bent knees,


s: And drained her goblet to the very lees.


s: 'Oh priest, remember, keep thine oath,' she cried,


s: And the spent goblet fell against her side.


s: "And then she moaned and murmured like a bell:


s: She said, but fluttered like a bird and fell


s: Lifeless as marble to the footworn floor;


s: And there she lies even now in lonely cell,


s: Poor lady, pale with all the grief she bore,


s: She could not live, and still be true to thee,


s: And so she's gone where no rude hands can be."


s: The monk's voice pauses like some mournful flute,


s: Whose pondered closes for sheer sorrow fail,


s: And then with hand that seems as it would suit


s: A soft girl best, it is so light and frail,


s: He turns half round, and for a moment mute


s: Points to the goblet, and so ends his tale:


s: "Mine oath is kept, thy lady's last command;


s: 'Tis but a short hour since it left her hand."


s: So ends the stranger: surely no man's tongue


s: Was e'er so soft, or half so sweet, as his.


s: Oft as he listened, Nino's heart had sprung


s: With sudden start as from a spectre's kiss;


s: For deep in many a word he deemed had rung


s: And so it pierced his sorrow to the core,


s: The ghost of tones that he should hear no more.


s: But now the tale is ended, and still keeps


s: And Nino stands, wide-eyed, as one that sleeps,


s: And dimly wonders how his heart doth bleed.


s: Anon he bends, yet neither moans nor weeps,


s: "Ah! bitter fate, that lured and sold us so,


s: His wandering eyes upon the goblet fall.


s: Oh, dreaming heart! Oh, strange ingratitude!


s: Her parting gift, so rich, so crimson-hued,


s: The lover's draught, that shall be cure for all.


s: He lifts the goblet lightly from its place,


s: And smiles, and rears it with his courtly grace.


s: "Oh, lady sweet, I shall not long delay:


s: This gift of thine shall bring me to thine eyes.


s: The faithful soul, that at such bidding dies.


s: When thou art gone, I cannot longer stay


s: To brave this world with all its wrath and lies,


s: Where hands of stone and tongues of dragon's breath


s: Have bruised mine angel to her piteous death."


s: And now the gleaming goblet hath scarce dyed


s: His lips' thin pallor with its deathly red,


s: When Nino starts in wonder, fearful-eyed,


s: For, lo! the stranger with outstretchèd head


s: Springs at his face one soft and sudden stride,


s: And from his hand the deadly cup hath sped,


s: Dashed to the ground, and all it's seeded store


s: Runs out like blood upon the marble floor.


s: Nor stand so strange, nor look so deathly pale.


s: 'Twas all to prove thy heart's deaf constancy


s: I brought that cup and told that piteous tale.


s: Ah! chains and cells and cruel treachery


s: Are weak indeed when women's hearts assail.


s: Art angry, Nino?" 'Tis no monk that cries,


s: But sweet Leonora with her love-lit eyes.


s: She dashes from her brow the pented hood;


s: The dusky robe falls rustling to her feet;


s: And there she stands, as aye in dreams she stood.


s: So warm a flower from such a sombre bud,


s: So trembling fair, so wan, so pallid sweet.


s: Aye, Nino, down like saint upon thy knee,


s: And soothe her hands with kisses warm and free.


s: And now with broken laughter on her lips,


s: And now with moans remembering of her care,


s: She weeps, and smiles, and like a child she slips


s: Her lily fingers through his curly hair,


s: The while her head with all it's sweet she dips,


s: Close to his ear, to soothe and murmur there;


s: That much I doubted what thy love might be.


s: "And though 'twas cruel hard of me to try


s: Thy faithful heart with such a fearful test,


s: Yet now thou canst be happy, sweet, as I


s: Am wondrous happy in thy truth confessed.


s: To haggard death indeed thou needst not fly


s: To find the softness of thy lady's breast;


s: For such a gift was never death's to give,


s: But thou shalt have me for thy love, and live.


s: "Dost see these cheeks, my Nino? they're so thin,


s: Not round and soft, as when thou touched them last:


s: So long with bitter rage they pent me in,


s: Like some poor thief in lonely dungeon cast;


s: Only this night through every bolt and gin


s: By cunning stealth I wrought my way at last.


s: Straight to thine heart I fled, unfaltering,


s: "Nay, Nino, kneel not; let me hear thee speak.


s: We must not tarry long; the dawn is nigh."


s: But half in fear that yet the dream may fly,


s: He touches mutely mouth and brow and cheek;


s: Till in his ear she 'gins to plead and sigh:


s: "Dear love, forgive me for that cruel tale,


s: That stung thine heart and made thy lips so pale."


s: And so he folds her softly with quick sighs,


s: Talk and retalk, with dim or smiling eyes,


s: Of old delights and sweeter days to fall:


s: And yet not long, for, ere the starlit skies


s: Grow pale above the city's eastern wall,


s: They rise, with lips and happy hands withdrawn,


s: So to the quays by hidden ways they wend


s: In the pale morn, nor do they miss their friend.


s: Hath darkened Pisa, many a foe shall stray


s: Through Nino's home, with eyes malignly bright


s: In wolfish quest, but shall not find his prey:


s: The while those lovers in their white-winged flight


s: Shall see far out upon the twilight grey,


s: Why weep ye in your innocent toil at all?


s: Sweet little hands, why halt and tremble so?


s: Full many a wrong note falls, but let it fall!


s: Each broken cadence like a morning call;


s: Nay, clear and smooth I would not have you go,


s: Soft little hands, upon the curtained threshold set


s: Of this long life of labour, and unrestful fret.


s: Soft sunlight flickers on the checkered green:


s: Warm winds are stirring round my dreaming seat:


s: Among the yellow pumpkin blooms, that lean


s: Their crumpled rims beneath the heavy heat,


s: From bell to bell with golden-feathered feet;


s: Yet even here the voices of hard life go by;


s: Outside, the city strains with its eternal cry.


s: Here, as I sit--the sunlight on my face,


s: And shadows of green leaves upon mine eyes--


s: Stray hither then with all your old time grace,


s: Child-voices, trembling from the uncertain keys;


s: Play on, ye little fingers, touch the settled gloom,


s: And quickly, one by one, my waiting buds will bloom.


s: Or pluck one widening blossom, for my pain;


s: Old scents creep into mine inactive brain,


s: Smooth scents of things, I may not come anear;


s: I see, far off, old beaten pathways they adorn;


s: I cannot feel with hands the blossom or the thorn.


s: Toil on, sweet hands; once more I see the child;


s: The little child, that was myself, appears,


s: And all the old-time beauties, undefined,


s: Shine back to me across the opening years,


s: Quick griefs, that made the tender bosom wild,


s: Short blinding gusts, that died in passionate tears,


s: Sweet life, with all its change, that now so happy seems,


s: With all its child-heart glories, and untutored dreams.


s: Sweeter than all great artists' labouring:


s: God keep you, dimpled fingers, for you bring


s: Quiet gliding ghosts to me of joy and woe,


s: No certain things at all that thrill or sting,


s: But only sounds and scents and savours of things bright,


s: No joy or aching pain; but only dim delight.


s: Come ever in their rhythmic round, unchanged,


s: Who fronts them without fear, and like the gods


s: Looks out unanxiously on each day's gift


s: With calmly curious eye. How many things


s: Even in a little space, both good and ill,


s: Have fallen on me, and yet in all of them


s: The keen experience or the smooth remembrance


s: Hath found some sweet. It scarcely seems a month


s: Since we saw Crete; so swiftly sped the days,


s: Borne onward with how many changing scenes,


s: Not soon shall I forget them, the stout ship,


s: All the tense labour with the windy sea,


s: The cloud-wrapped heights of Crete, beheld far off,


s: The fruitful valleys, the wild mountain road,


s: And those long days of ever-vigilant toil,


s: Scarcely with sleepless craft and unmoved front


s: Escaping robbers, that quiet restful eve


s: At rich Gortyna, where we lay and watched


s: The dripping foliage, and the darkening fields,


s: And over all huge-browed above the night


s: Ida's great summit with it's fiery crown;


s: And then once more the stormy treacherous sea,


s: The noisy ship, the seamen's vehement cries,


s: That battled with the whistling wind, the feet


s: Strained anxiously toward land; ah, with what joy


s: Rest and firm shelter for our racking brains:


s: That journey with Euktemon through the hills


s: Remembered like a reeling dream; and here


s: Good Theron's wedding, and this festal day;


s: And I, chief helper in its various rites,


s: Not least, commissioned through these wakeful hours


s: Unsleeping, like some full-grown bearded Eros,


s: The guardian of love's sweetest mysteries.


s: Of the loosed cables, and the rowers' chaunt,


s: The rattled cordage and the plunging oars.


s: Once more the bending sail shall bear us on


s: Ere mid-day we shall see far off behind us,


s: With rushing keel, the long Euboean strand,


s: Hymettus and the pine-dark hills shall fade


s: Into the dusk: at Andros we shall water,


s: And ere another starlight hush the shores


s: From seaward valleys catch upon the wind


s: At Chios many things shall fall, but none


s: Can trace the future; rather let me dream


s: Of what is now, and what hath been, for both


s: Awakens thought and makes remembrance sweet.


s: How solidly the brilliant moonlight shines


s: How dense the shadows. I can scarcely see


s: Yet how the gloom hath made her real. What sound,


s: Hath startled her. Perchance some prowling wolf,


s: Or luckless footsteps of the stealthy Pan,


s: Creeping at night among the noiseless steeps


s: Roused her from sleep. With listening head,


s: Snatched bow, and quiver lightly slung, she stands,


s: And peers across that dim and motionless glade,


s: Beckoning about her heels the wakeful dogs;


s: Making more real this brooding quietness.


s: How strong and wonderful is night! Mankind


s: Has yielded all to one sweet helplessness:


s: Thought, labour, strife and all activities


s: Have ebbed like fever. The smooth tide of sleep,


s: Hath covered all the labouring villages.


s: And busier tongues lies quiet beneath it's waves.


s: Were breathing heavily in dreams. Abroad


s: No creature stirs, not even the reveller,


s: Staggering, unlanterned, from the cool Piræus,


s: With drunken shout. The remnants of the feast,


s: The crumpled cushions and the broken wreathes,


s: Lie scattered in yon shadowy court, whose stones


s: Through the warm hours drink up the staining wine.


s: The bridal oxen in their well-filled stalls


s: Sleep, mindless of the happy weight they drew.


s: The torch is charred; the garlands at the door,


s: So gay at morning with their bright festoons,


s: Hang limp and withered; and the joyous flutes


s: Holds now in it's remote unsleeping depths


s: And memory of the modest lips that sang it.


s: The sea-sprung radiant Cytherean reigns,


s: And with her smiling lips and fathomless eyes


s: Regards the lovers, knowing that this hour


s: Is theirs once only. Earth and thought and time


s: Lie far beyond them, a great gulf of joy,


s: Unsought, have turned upon their tremulous eyes


s: The mindless stream of sleep; nor do they care


s: These hours have gone with all their pictured scenes,


s: The hunger of some wakeful hour like this,


s: The flowers, the myrtles, the gay bridal train,


s: The flutes and pensive voices, the white robes,


s: The shower of sweet-meats, and the jovial feast,


s: The bride cakes, and the teeming merriment,


s: Most beautiful of all, most sweet to name,


s: The good Lysippe with her down-cast eyes,


s: Touched with soft fear, half scared at all the noise,


s: Whose tears were ready as her laughter, fresh,


s: How young she looked, and how her smiling lips


s: Betrayed her happiness. Ah, who can tell,


s: How often, when no watchful eye was near,


s: Her eager fingers, trembling and ashamed,


s: Essayed the apple-pips, or strewed the floor


s: Theron himself the gladest goodliest figure,


s: His honest face ruddy with health and joy,


s: And smiling like the Ægean, when the sun


s: Hangs high in heaven, and the freshening wind


s: Comes in from Melos, rippling all its floor:


s: And there was Manto too, the good old crone,


s: So dear to children with her store of tales,


s: Warmed with new life: how to her old grey face


s: And withered limbs the very dance of youth


s: That mischievous satyr with his tipsy wreath,


s: Who kept us laughing at his pranks, and made


s: Old Pyrrho angry. Him too sleep hath bound


s: Upon his rough-hewn couch with subtle thong,


s: Crowding his brain with odd fantastic shapes.


s: Even in sleep his little limbs, I think,


s: Twitch restlessly, and still his tongue gibes on


s: With inarticulate murmur. Ah, quaint Mæon!


s: And Manto, poor old Manto, what dim dreams


s: Of things that creep encumbered with huge burdens


s: Gloom and infest her through these dragging hours,


s: Haunting the wavering soul, so near the grave?


s: But all things journey to the same quiet end


s: At last, life, joy and every form of motion.


s: Nothing stands still. Not least inevitable,


s: The sad recession of this passionate love,


s: Whose panting fires, so soon and with such grief,


s: Even life itself for one all pampering dream,


s: That withers like those garlands at the door;


s: Besotted thus, and some that bore till death,


s: In the crook'd vision and embittered tongue,


s: The effect of this strange poison, like a scar,


s: Who deals more wondrously in this disease


s: Even than in others, yet doth sometimes will


s: To make the same thing unto different men


s: Who wore his fetters with such grace, and spent


s: On Chione, the Naxian, that shrewd girl,


s: His fortune and his youth, yet, while she lived,


s: Enjoyed the rich reward? He seemed like one,


s: How when she died in that remorseless plague,


s: He shook me with his helpless passionate grief.


s: Whose boyish fondness for his pretty wife


s: We smiled at, and yet envied; at the close


s: Of each day's labour how he posted home,


s: And thence no bait, however plumed, could draw him.


s: We laughed, but envied him. How sweet she looked


s: With her rare eyes and modest girlish grace,


s: Leading her two small children by the palm.


s: To clip my wings, and wind about my feet


s: A net, whose self-made meshes are as stern


s: The outer world with its untravelled paths,


s: The wanderer's dream, the itch to see new things.


s: For life, this joyous, busy, ever-changing life,


s: With space of earth for feet to travel in


s: The hours a sort of coin to barter with,


s: Whose worth is reckoned by the sum they buy


s: In gold, or power, or pleasure; each short day


s: That brings not these deemed fruitless as dry sand.


s: And death to them is but the end of motion,


s: Grey children who have madly eat and drunk,


s: Won the high seats or filled their chests with gold.


s: And yet for all their years have never seen


s: The picture of their lives, or how life looks


s: How sweet and large and beautiful it was,


s: How strange the part they played. Like him who sits


s: Beneath some mighty tree, with half-closed eyes,


s: At ease rejoicing in its murmurous shade,


s: Yet never once awakes from his dull dream


s: To mark with curious joy the kingly trunk,


s: The sweeping boughs and tower of leaves that gave it,


s: Even so the most of men; they take the gift,


s: And care not for the giver. Strange indeed


s: Who, thus unmindful of their wretchedness,


s: Crowd at life's bountiful gates, like fattening beggars,


s: Greedy and blind. For see how rich a thing


s: Life is to him who sees, to whom each hour


s: Brings some fresh wonder to be brooded on,


s: To that wrought sculpture, that our watchful dreams


s: The little things that most men pass unmarked


s: Than those that shake mankind. Happy is he,


s: Who, as a watcher, stands apart from life,


s: From all life and his own, and thus from all,


s: Each thought, each deed, and each hour's brief event,


s: Draws the full beauty, sucks its meaning dry.


s: For him this life shall be a tranquil joy.


s: He shall be quiet and free. To him shall come


s: No gnawing hunger for the coarser touch,


s: Sorrow itself shall sway him like a dream.


s: Flash, and shine out, when thought is sharply stirred;


s: How the mind works, when once the wheels are loosed,


s: I think, 'tis strange that men should ever sleep,


s: So many deeds, so many thoughts to weigh,


s: To pierce, and plumb them to the silent depth.


s: Too little given to probe the inner heart,


s: But rather wont, with the luxurious eye,


s: To catch from life it's outer loveliness,


s: Such things as do but store the joyous memory


s: With food for solace rather than for thought,


s: Like light-lined figures on a painted jar.


s: Euktemon with his rough and fitful talk,


s: How strange, how bleak and unapproachable;


s: And yet I liked him from the first. How soon


s: We know our friends, through all disguise of mood,


s: The honest heart within. Euktemon's glance


s: Betrayed him with it's gusty friendliness,


s: Flashing at moments from the clouded brow,


s: Like brave warm sunshine, and his laughter too,


s: How at some merry scene, some well-told tale,


s: It broke like thunderous water, rolling out


s: Yet no man would have dreamed, who saw us two


s: That first grey morning on the pier at Crete,


s: That friendship could have forged thus easily


s: A bond so subtle and so sure between us;


s: He, gloomy and austere; I, full of thought


s: Lifting with lighter hands the lids of life,


s: Untortured by its riddles; he, whose smiles


s: I, to whom smiles are ever near the lip.


s: And yet I think he loved me too; my mood


s: Was not unpleasant to him, though I know


s: At times I teased him with my flickering talk.


s: How self-immured he was; for all our converse


s: The changes of men's outer circumstance,


s: The strokes that fate has shaped them with, and so,


s: Fitting to these their present speech and favour,


s: Discern the thought within. From him I gleaned


s: Nothing. At the least word, however guarded,


s: That sought to try the fastenings of his life


s: With prying hands, how mute and dark he grew,


s: And like the cautious tortoise at a touch


s: Spent as I love on foot, our first together,


s: Had given us safely to dry land; the tramp


s: From grey Mycenæ by the pass to Corinth,


s: The smooth white road, the soft caressing air,


s: Full of the scent of blossoms, the clear sky,


s: Old Helios' scattered flock, the low-branched oaks


s: And fountained resting-places, the cool nooks,


s: Where eyes less darkened with life's use than mine


s: Perchance had caught the Naiads in their dreams,


s: Or won white glimpses of their flying heels.


s: How light our feet were: with what rhythmic strides


s: We left the long blue gulf behind us, sown


s: Far out with snowy sails; and how our hearts


s: Rose with the growth of morning, till we reached


s: That moss-hung fountain on the hillside near


s: Cover the ground, and make it red like fire.


s: Could ever grief, I wonder, or fixed care,


s: Or even the lingering twilight of old age,


s: Divest for me such memories of their sweet?


s: Even Euktemon's obdurate mood broke down.


s: The odorous stillness, the serene bright air,


s: The leafy shadows, the warm blossoming earth,


s: Drew near with their voluptuous eloquence,


s: Such hours, I think, are better than long years


s: Of brooding loneliness, mind touching mind


s: To leaping life, and thought sustaining thought,


s: Till even the darkest chambers of grey time,


s: His ancient seats, and bolted mysteries,


s: Lay all their treasures bare. How, when our thought


s: Grew as it seemed too large for utterance,


s: And grasp such things as in our daring mood


s: We had but glimpsed and leaped at; yet how long


s: We studied thus with absent eyes, I know not;


s: Our thought died slowly out; the busy road,


s: The voices of the passers-by, the change


s: Of garb and feature, and the various tongues


s: Absorbed us. Ah, how clearly I recall them!


s: For in these silent wakeful hours the mind


s: Is strangely swift. With what sharp lines


s: The shapes of things that even years have buried


s: Moving and warm like life. I can see now


s: The form of that tall peddler, whose strange wares,


s: Is echoing still the cracking string of gibes,


s: They flung at one another. I remember too


s: The grey-haired merchant with his bold black eyes


s: And brace of slaves, the old ship captain tanned


s: With sweeping sea-winds and the pitiless sun,


s: But best of all that dainty amorous pair,


s: Whose youthful spirit neither heat nor toil


s: Could conquer. What a charming group they made?


s: The creaking litter and the long brown poles,


s: The sinewy bearers with their cat-like stride,


s: Dripping with sweat, that merry dark-eyed girl,


s: Whose sudden beauty shook us from our dreams,


s: And chained our eyes. How beautiful she was?


s: Half-hid among the gay Miletian cushions,


s: The lovely laughing face, the gracious form,


s: The fragrant lightly-knotted hair, and eyes


s: Full of the dancing fire of wanton Corinth.


s: That happy stripling, whose delighted feet


s: Swung at her side, whose tongue ran on so gaily,


s: Is it for him alone she wreathes those smiles,


s: And tunes so musically that flexile voice,


s: Soft as the Lydian flute? Surely his gait


s: Proclaimed the lover, and his well-filled girdle


s: Not less the lover's strength. How joyously


s: He strode, unmindful of his ruffled curls,


s: Whose perfumes still went wide upon the wind,


s: His dust-stained robe unheeded, and the stones


s: Whose ragged edges frayed his delicate shoes.


s: Half-stretched among the crushed anemones,


s: And watched them, till a far off jutting ledge


s: Precluded sight, still listening till mine ears


s: Caught the last vanishing murmur of their talk.


s: With limbs refreshed, and kept a swinging pace


s: Toward Corinth; but our talk, I know not why,


s: Fell for that day. I wonder what there was


s: About those dainty lovers or their speech,


s: That changed Euktemon's mood; for all the way


s: Till sunset found us loitering without aim,


s: Half lost among the dusky-moving crowds,


s: I could get nothing from him but dark looks,


s: Short answers and the old defiant stride.


s: Some memory pricked him. It may be, perchance,


s: A woman's treachery, some luckless passion,


s: In former days endured, hath seared his blood,


s: And dowered him with that cureless bitter humour.


s: Alone are sweet, the tumults of this world


s: A thing unworthy of the wise man's touch,


s: With broad-browed scorn. One quality at least


s: Shifters and wanderers through this sleepless world,


s: Albeit in different moods. 'Tis that, I think,


s: There is no hand that I would gladlier grasp,


s: When the grey keel shall grind the Stygian strand,


s: Yearning upon the faint rose-curves that flit


s: About her child-sweet mouth and innocent cheek,


s: And in her eyes watching with eyes all meek


s: The light and shadow of laughter, I would sit


s: Mute, knowing our two souls might never knit;


s: As if a pale proud lily-flower should seek


s: The love of some red rose, but could not speak


s: One word of her blithe tongue to tell of it.


s: For oh, my Love was sunny-lipped and stirred


s: With all swift light and sound and gloom not long


s: Retained; I, with dreams weighed, that ever heard


s: Sad burdens echoing through the loudest throng


s: She, the wild song of some May-merry bird;


s: Beloved, those who moan of love's brief day


s: Shall find but little grace with me, I guess,


s: Who know too well this passion's tenderness


s: To deem that it shall lightly pass away,


s: A moment's interlude in life's dull play;


s: Though many loves have lingered to distress,


s: So shall not ours, sweet Lady, ne'ertheless,


s: But deepen with us till both heads be grey.


s: For perfect love is like a fair green plant,


s: That fades not with its blossoms, but lives on,


s: And gentle lovers shall not come to want,


s: Though fancy with its first mad dream be gone;


s: Sweet is the flower, whose radiant glory flies,


s: But sweeter still the green that never dies.


s: If she be glad, 'tis like a child's wild air,


s: Who claps her hands above a heap of flowers;


s: And if she's sad, it is no cloud that lowers,


s: Rather a saint's pale grace, whose golden hair


s: Gleams like a crown, whose eyes are like a prayer


s: From some quiet window under minster towers.


s: For words and woven phrases fall to naught,


s: Lost in the silence of one dream divine,


s: Wrapped in the beating wonder of this thought:


s: Even thou, who art so precious, thou art mine!


s: Comfort the sorrowful with watchful eyes


s: In silence, for the tongue cannot avail.


s: Vex not his wounds with rhetoric, nor the stale


s: Worn truths, that are but maddening mockeries


s: To him whose grief outmasters all replies.


s: Only watch near him gently; do but bring


s: Watchful and tender. This alone is wise.


s: So shall thy presence and thine every motion,


s: The grateful knowledge of thy sad devotion


s: Melt out the passionate hardness of his grief,


s: And break the flood-gates of the pent-up soul.


s: He shall bow down beneath thy mute control,


s: And take thine hands, and weep, and find relief.


s: Slow figures in some live remorseless frieze,


s: The approaching days escapeless and unguessed,


s: With mask and shroud impenetrably dressed;


s: And the huge presence of this world, at best


s: A sightless giant wandering without rest,


s: The weight and measure of these things who knows?


s: Resting at times beside life's thought-swept stream,


s: Sobered and stunned with unexpected blows,


s: We scarcely hear the uproar; life doth seem,


s: Save for the certain nearness of its woes,


s: Vain and phantasmal as a sick man's dream.


s: Not to be conquered by these headlong days,


s: But to stand free: to keep the mind at brood


s: On life's deep meaning, nature's altitude


s: Of loveliness, and time's mysterious ways;


s: At every thought and deed to clear the haze


s: What man, what life, what love, what beauty is,


s: This is to live, and win the final praise.


s: Though strife, ill fortune and harsh human need


s: With agony; yet, patience--there shall come


s: Many great voices from life's outer sea,


s: Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed,


s: At strife, earth's children, will ye never rest


s: From toils made hateful here, and dawns distressed


s: And will ye never know, till sleep shall see


s: Your graves, how dreadful and how dark indeed


s: Are pride, self-will, and blind-voiced anger, greed,


s: Like April sunshine, or the summer rain,


s: Swells everywhere the buds of generous thought?


s: Smoothes out so soon the tangled knots of pain.


s: Can ye not learn it? will ye not be taught?


s: Something of all thy beauty and thy might,


s: Us that are part of day, but most of night,


s: Not strong like thee, but ever burdened thus


s: With glooms and cares, things pale and dolorous


s: Whose gladest moments are not wholly bright;


s: Something of all thy freshness and thy light,


s: Oh earth, oh mighty mother, breathe on us.


s: Oh mother, who wast long before our day,


s: Careworn and blind, we wander from thy way:


s: Born of thy strength, yet weak and halt are we


s: Grant us, oh mother, therefore, us who pray,


s: Move on, light hands, so strongly tenderly,


s: Now with dropped calm and yearning undersong,


s: Now swift and loud, tumultuously strong,


s: And I in darkness, sitting near to thee,


s: Shall only hear, and feel, but shall not see,


s: One hour made passionately bright with dreams,


s: Keen glimpses of life's splendour, dashing gleams


s: Of what we would, and what we cannot be.


s: Shall such hours be to me, but blindly sweet,


s: Sharp with all yearning and all fact at strife,


s: Dreams that shine by with unremembered feet,


s: And tones that like far distance make this life


s: Spectral and wonderful and strangely sad.


s: What is more large than knowledge and more sweet;


s: Knowledge of thoughts and deeds, of rights and wrongs,


s: Of passions and of beauties and of songs;


s: Knowledge of life; to feel its great heart beat


s: Through all the soul upon her crystal seat;


s: To till the old world's wisdom till it grow


s: Oh for a life of leisure and broad hours,


s: To think and dream, to put away small things,


s: This world's perpetual leaguer of dull naughts;


s: To wander like the bee among the flowers


s: Till old age find us weary, feet and wings


s: Grown heavy with the gold of many thoughts.


s: The world is bright with beauty, and its days


s: Are filled with music; could we only know


s: True ends from false, and lofty things from low;


s: Could we but tear away the walls that graze


s: Behold the width beyond us with its flow,


s: Its knowledge and its murmur and its glow,


s: Where doubt itself is but a golden haze.


s: Ah brothers, still upon our pathway lies


s: Yet if we could but lift our earthward eyes


s: Then should the wonder of this world draw near


s: Even as I watched the daylight how it sped


s: From noon till eve, and saw the light wind pass


s: In long pale waves across the flashing grass,


s: And heard through all my dreams, wherever led,


s: I felt what joyance all this nature has,


s: And saw myself made clear as in a glass,


s: How that my soul was for the most part dead.


s: Oh, light, I cried, and, heaven, with all your blue,


s: Oh, earth, with all your sunny fruitfulness,


s: And ye, tall lilies, of the wind-vexed field,


s: What power and beauty life indeed might yield,


s: Could we but cast away its conscious stress,


s: The wind-swayed daisies, that on every side


s: Throng the wide fields in whispering companies,


s: The delicate thought-wrapped buttercups that glide


s: Like sparks of fire above the wavering grass,


s: And swing and toss with all the airs that pass,


s: These are the emblems of pure pleasures flown,


s: I scarce can think of pleasure without these.


s: Lulled with the perfume of old hopes new-blown,


s: 'Tis well with words, oh masters, ye have sought


s: To turn men's yearning to the great and true,


s: Yet first take heed to what your own hands do;


s: By deeds not words the souls of men are taught;


s: Good lives alone are fruitful; they are caught


s: Into the fountain of all life (wherethrough


s: Men's souls that drink are broken or made new)


s: With the clear essence of eternal youth.


s: Is like a drop of quenchless venom cast,


s: A liquid thread, into life's feeding stream,


s: Bearing the seed of death and woe at last.


s: Oh deep-eyed brothers was there ever here,


s: Or is there now, or shall there sometime be


s: Lone thin-cheeked mariners, that aye must steer


s: Our whispering barks with such keen hope and fear


s: Toward misty bournes across that coastless sea,


s: Whose winds are songs that ever gust and flee,


s: Whose shores are dreams that tower but come not near.


s: Yet we perchance, for all that flesh and mind


s: Of many ills be marked with many a trace,


s: Shall find this life more sweet more strangely kind,


s: Than they of that dim-hearted earthly race,


s: Who creep firm-nailed upon the earth's hard face,


s: And hear nor see not, being deaf and blind.