To thirst and find no fill - to wail and wander
With short unsteady steps - to pause and ponder -
To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle
Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle;
To nurse the image of unfelt caresses
Till dim imagination just possesses
The half-created shadow, then all the night
Sick...

A Beautiful Little Girl.

Fair as some sea-child, in her coral bower,
    Decked with the rare, rich treasures of the deep;
Mild as the spirit of the dream whose power
    Bears back the infant's soul to heaven, in sleep
Brightens the hues of summer's first-born flower
    Pure as the tears repentant mourners weep
O'er deeds to which the siren, Sin, beguiled, -
Art thou, sweet, smiling, bright-eyed cherub child.

Thy presence is a spell of holiness,
    From which unhallowed thoughts shrink blushing back, -
Thy smile is a warm light that shines to bless,
    As beams the beacon o'er the wanderer's track, -
Thy voice is music, at whose sounds Distress
    Unbinds her writhing victim from the rack
Of misery, and charmed by what she hears,
Forgets her w...

Great dignity ever attends great grief,
And silently walks beside it;
And I always know when I see such woe
That Invisible Helpers guide it.
And I know deep sorrow is like a tide,
It cannot ever be flowing;
The high-water mark in the night and the dark -
Then dawn, and the outward going.

But the people who pull at my heart-strings hard
Are the ones whom destiny hurries
Through commonplace ways to the end of their days,
And pesters with paltry worries.
The peddlers who trudge with a budget of wares
To the door that is slammed unkindly;
The vendor who stands with his shop in his hands
Where the hastening hosts pass blindly;

The woman who holds in her poor flat purse
The price of her rent-room only,
While her starved eye feeds on the comfort...

I came to you quietly when you were lying
In perfect midnight sleep.
Your dark soft hair was all about your pillow,
So black upon the white.
I could not see your face except the lovely
Curve of the pale cheek;
Your head was bent as though your stirless slumber
Was sea-like heavy and deep.
The wind came gently in at the wide window,
Shaking the candle-light
And shadows on the wall; and there was silence,
Or sound but far and weak.
By the bedside your daytime toys were gathered:
The bright bell-ringing wheel,
Dolls clad in violent yellow and vermilion,
Strings of gay-coloured beads....
But you were far and far from these beside you,
Entranced with other joys
In fresh fields, among other children running:
Your voice, I knew, must peal
Purely a...

I opened my shutter at sunrise,
    And looked at the hill hard by,
And I heartily grieved for the comrade
    Who wandered up there to die.

I let in the morn on the morrow,
    And failed not to think of him then,
As he trod up that rise in the twilight,
    And never came down again.

I undid the shutter a week thence,
    But not until after I'd turned
Did I call back his last departure
    By the upland there discerned.

Uncovering the casement long later,
    I bent to my toil till the gray,
When I said to myself, "Ah what ails me,
    To forget him all the day!"

As daily I flung back the shutter
    In the same blank bald routine,
He scarcely once rose to remembrance
    Through a month of my facing the scene.

Amor mi manda quel dolce pensero.

LIFE WILL FAIL HIM BEFORE HOPE.


    Love to my mind recalling that sweet thought,
The ancient confidant our lives between,
Well comforts me, and says I ne'er have been
So near as now to what I hoped and sought.
I, who at times with dangerous falsehood fraught,
At times with partial truth, his words have seen,
Live in suspense, still missing the just mean,
'Twixt yea and nay a constant battle fought.
Meanwhile the years pass on: and I behold
In my true glass the adverse time draw near
Her promise and my hope which limits here.
So let it be: alone I grow not old;
Changes not e'en with age my loving troth;
My fear is this--the short life left us both.

MACGREGOR.

A void is in the sky!
A light has ceased the seaman's path to cheer,
A star has left its ruby throne on high,
A world forsook its sphere.
Thy sisters bright pursue their circling way,
But thou, lone wanderer! thou hast left our vault for aye.

Did Sin invade thy bowers,
And Death with sable pinion sweep thine air,
Blasting the beauty of thy fairest flowers,
And God admit no prayer?
Didst thou, as fable saith, wax faint and dim
With the first mortal breath between thy zone and Him?

Did human love, with all
Its passionate might and meek endurance strong,--
The love that mocks at Time and scorns the pall,
Through conflict fierce and long,--
Live in thy soul, yet know no future's ray?
Then, mystic world! 't was well that thou shouldst pass away.

    "For myself alone, I would not be
    Ambitious in my wish; but, for you,
    I would be trebled twenty times myself;
    A thousand times more fair,
    Ten thousand times more rich."

I

He sang above the vineyards of the world.
    And after him the vines with woven hands
Clambered and clung, and everywhere unfurled
    Triumphing green above the barren lands;
Till high as gardens grow, he climbed, he stood,
    Sun-crowned with life and strength, and singing toil,
And looked upon his work; and it was good:
                The corn, the wine, the oil.

He sang above the noon. The topmost cleft
    That grudged him footing on the mountain scars
He planted and despaired not; till he left
    His vines soft breathing to the host of stars.
He wrought, he tilled; and even as he sang,
    The creatures of his planting laughed to scorn
The ancient threat of deserts where there sprang
                The wine, the oil, the corn!

To the heart of trusting childhood life is all a gilded way,
Wherein a beam of sunny bliss forever seems to play;
It roams about delightedly through pleasure's roseate bower,
And gaily makes a playmate, too, of every bird and flower;
Holds with the rushing of the winds companionship awhile,
And, on the tempest's darkest brow, discerns a brightening smile,
Converses with the babbling waves, as on their way they wend,
And sees, in everything it meets, the features of a friend.
"To-day" is full of rosy joy, "to-morrow" is not here:
When, for an uncreated hour, was childhood known to fear?
Not until hopes, warm hopes, its heart a treasure-house have made,
Like summer flowers to bloom awhile, like them, alas, to fade;
Cherished too fondly and too long, for ah! the rich parterre,
...

White, I lie
On the remains of an amusement park
Between jagged buildings -
Burning flower... shining sea...
Toes and hands
Reach out into emptiness.
Longing tears the weeping body to pieces.
The little moon glides above me.
Eyes grope
Gently into the deep world,
Sunken hats
Wandering stars.

1.

Why should my anxious breast repine,
Because my youth is fled?
Days of delight may still be mine;
Affection is not dead.
In tracing back the years of youth,
One firm record, one lasting truth
Celestial consolation brings;
Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat,
Where first my heart responsive beat, -
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"


2

Through few, but deeply chequer'd years,
What moments have been mine!
Now half obscured by clouds of tears,
Now bright in rays divine;
Howe'er my future doom be cast,
My soul, enraptured with the past,
To one idea fondly clings;
Friendship! that thought is all thine own,
Worth worlds of bliss, that thought alone -
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"


3
...

    In the old air
    by his rocker,
    a silent trapeze of thought
    suspends an aging man.

    Each movement as of the katydid
    droning -
    a monologue with the past;
    a buzz escaping across
    still, warm air.
    Elsewhere, cicadas whittle about the octogenarian heat.

    Nestled quietly, a supine stare erodes both time & place
    unto bearded grey -
    nuances clasped
    in a breathless chat with death.

Shall Earth no more inspire thee,
Thou lonely dreamer now?
Since passion may not fire thee
Shall nature cease to bow?

Thy mind is ever moving
In regions dark to thee;
Recall its useless roving
Come back and dwell with me

I know my mountain breezes
Enchant annd soothe thee still
I know my sunshine pleases
Despite thy wayward will

When day with evening blending
Sinks from the summer sky,
I've seen thy spirit bending
In fond idolotry

I've watched thee every hour
I know my mighty sway
I know my magic power
To drive thy griefs away

Few hearts to mortal given
On earth so wildly pine
Yet none would ask a Heaven
More like this Earth than thine

Then let my winds caress thee
Thy comrade let...

Silence now reigns in the corridors wide,
The stately rooms of that mansion of pride;
The music is hushed, the revellers gone,
The glitt'ring ball-room deserted and lone, -
Silence and gloom, like a clinging pall,
O'ershadow the house - 'tis after the ball.

Yet a light still gleams in a distant room,
Where sits a girl in her "first season's bloom;"
Look at her closely, is she not fair,
With exquisite features, rich silken hair
And the beautiful, child-like, trusting eyes
Of one in the world's ways still unwise.

The wreath late carefully placed on her brow
She has flung on a distant foot-stool now;
The flowers, exhaling their fragrance sweet,
Lie crushed and withering at her feet;
Gloves and tablets she has suffered to fall -
She seems so weary...

There never was a valley without a faded flower,
There never was a heaven without some little cloud;
The face of day may flash with light in any morning hour,
But evening soon shall come with her shadow-woven shroud.

There never was a river without its mists of gray,
There never was a forest without its fallen leaf;
And joy may walk beside us down the windings of our way,
When, lo! there sounds a footstep, and we meet the face of grief.

There never was a seashore without its drifting wreck,
There never was an ocean without its moaning wave;
And the golden gleams of glory the summer sky that fleck,
Shine where dead stars are sleeping in their azure-mantled grave.

There never was a streamlet, however crystal clear,
Without a shadow resting in the ripples of i...

        The saddest hour of anguish and of loss
    Is not that season of supreme despair
    When we can find no least light anywhere
        To gild the dread, black shadow of the Cross;
        Not in that luxury of sorrow when
    We sup on salt of tears, and drink the gall
    Of memories of days beyond recall -
        Of lost delights that cannot come again.

    But when, with eyes that are no longer wet,
        We look out on the great, wide world of men,
        And, smiling, lean toward a bright to-morrow,
    Then backward shrink, with sudden keen regret,
    To find that we are learning to forget:
        Ah! then we face the saddest hour of sorrow.

Like him who met his own eyes in the river,
    The poet trembles at his own long gaze
    That meets him through the changing nights and days
From out great Nature; all her waters quiver
With his fair image facing him for ever;
    The music that he listens to betrays
    His own heart to his ears; by trackless ways
His wild thoughts tend to him in long endeavour.

His dreams are far among the silent hills;
    His vague voice calls him from the darkened plain
With winds at night; strange recognition thrills
    His lonely heart with piercing love and pain;
He knows his sweet mirth in the mountain rills,
    His weary tears that touch him with the rain.