How low when angels fall their black descent,Our primal thunder tells: known is the painOf music, that nigh throning wisdom went,And one false note cast wailful to the insane.Now seems the language heard of Love as rainTo make a mire where fruitfulness was meant.The golden harp gives out a jangled strain,Too like revolt from heaven’s […]

I ‘Heigh, boys!’ cried Grandfather Bridgeman, ‘it’s time before dinnerto-day.’He lifted the crumpled letter, and thumped a surprising ‘Hurrah!’Up jumped all the echoing young ones, but John, with the starch inhis throat,Said, ‘Father, before we make noises, let’s see the contents of thenote.’The old man glared at him harshly, and twinkling made answer: ‘Toobad!John Bridgeman, […]

Not vainly doth the earnest voice of manCall for the thing that is his pure desire!Fame is the birthright of the living lyre!To noble impulse Nature puts no ban.Nor vainly to the Sphinx thy voice was raised!Tho’ all thy great emotions like a sea,Against her stony immortality,Shatter themselves unheeded and amazed.Time moves behind her in […]

Should thy love die;O bury it not under ice-blue eyes!And lips that deny,With a scornful surprise,The life it once lived in thy breast when it wore no disguise. Should thy love die;O bury it where the sweet wild-flowers blow!And breezes go by,With no whisper of woe;And strange feet cannot guess of the anguish that slumbers […]

Whate’er I be, old England is my dam!So there’s my answer to the judges, clear.I’m nothing of a fox, nor of a lamb;I don’t know how to bleat nor how to leer:I’m for the nation!That’s why you see me by the wayside here,Returning home from transportation. II It’s Summer in her bath this morn, I […]

I Within a Temple of the Toes,Where twirled the passionate Wili,I saw full many a market rose,And sighed for my village lily. II With cynical Adrian then I took flightTo that old dead city whose carolBursts out like a reveller’s loud in the night,As he sits astride his barrel. III We two were bound the […]

Night, like a dying mother,Eyes her young offspring, Day.The birds are dreamily piping.And O, my love, my darling!The night is life ebb’d away:Away beyond our reach!A sea that has cast us pale on the beach;Weeds with the weeds and the pebblesThat hear the lone tamarisk rooted in sand SwayWith the song of the sea to […]

I She can be as wise as we,And wiser when she wishes;She can knit with cunning wit,And dress the homely dishes.She can flourish staff or pen,And deal a wound that lingers;She can talk the talk of men,And touch with thrilling fingers. II Match her ye across the sea,Natures fond and fiery;Ye who zest the turtle’s […]

I The old grey mother she thrummed on her knee:There is a rose that’s ready;And which of the handsome young men shall it be?There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping. My daughter, come hither, come hither to me:There is a rose that’s ready;Come, point me your finger on him that you see:There’s a rose that’s […]

On my darling’s bosomHas dropped a living rosy bud,Fair as brilliant HesperAgainst the brimming flood.She handles him,She dandles him,She fondles him and eyes him:And if upon a tear he wakes,With many a kiss she dries him:She covets every move he makes,And never enough can prize him.Ah, the young Usurper!I yield my golden throne:Such angel bands […]

I Captive on a foreign shore,Far from Ilion’s hoary wave,Agamemnon’s bridal slaveSpeaks Futurity no more:Death is busy with her grave. II Thick as water, bursts remoteRound her ears the alien din,While her little sullen chinFills the hollows of her throat:Silent lie her slaughter’d kin. III Once to many a pealing shriek,Lo, from Ilion’s topmost tower,Ilion’s […]

‘Sirs! may I shake your hands?My countrymen, I see!I’ve lived in foreign landsTill England’s Heaven to me.A hearty shake will do me good,And freshen up my sluggish blood.’ Into his hard right hand we struck,Gave the shake, and wish’d him luck. ‘–From Austria I come,An English wife to win,And find an English home,And live and […]

Fair Mother Earth lay on her back last night,To gaze her fill on Autumn’s sunset skies,When at a waving of the fallen lightSprang realms of rosy fruitage o’er her eyes.A lustrous heavenly orchard hung the West,Wherein the blood of Eden bloomed again:Red were the myriad cherub-mouths that pressed,Among the clusters, rich with song, full fain,But […]

Thy greatest knew thee, Mother Earth; unsouredHe knew thy sons. He probed from hell to hellOf human passions, but of love defloweredHis wisdom was not, for he knew thee well.Thence came the honeyed corner at his lips,The conquering smile wherein his spirit sailsCalm as the God who the white sea-wave whips,Yet full of speech and […]

When I would image her features,Comes up a shrouded head:I touch the outlines, shrinking;She seems of the wandering dead. But when love asks for nothing,And lies on his bed of snow,The face slips under my eyelids,All in its living glow. Like a dark cathedral city,Whose spires, and domes, and towersQuiver in violet lightnings,My soul basks […]

A roar thro’ the tall twin elm-treesThe mustering storm betrayed:The South-wind seized the willowThat over the water swayed. Then fell the steady delugeIn which I strove to doze,Hearing all night at my windowThe knock of the winter rose. The rainy rose of winter!An outcast it must pine.And from thy bosom outcastAm I, dear lady mine.

O my lover! the night like a broad smooth waveBears us onward, and morn, a black rock, shines wet.How I shuddered–I knew not that I was a slave,Till I looked on thy face:- then I writhed in the net.Then I felt like a thing caught by fire, that her starGlowed dark on the bosom of […]

The senses loving Earth or well or illRavel yet more the riddle of our lot.The mind is in their trammels, and lights notBy trimming fear-bred tales; nor does the willTo find in nature things which less may chillAn ardour that desires, unknowing what.Till we conceive her living we go distraught,At best but circle-windsails of a […]

Though I am faithful to my loves lived through,And place them among Memory’s great stars,Where burns a face like Hesper: one like Mars:Of visages I get a moment’s view,Sweet eyes that in the heaven of me, too,Ascend, tho’ virgin to my life they passed.Lo, these within my destiny seem glassedAt times so bright, I wish […]

Bright Sirius! that when Orion palesTo dotlings under moonlight still art keenWith cheerful fervour of a warrior’s mienWho holds in his great heart the battle-scales:Unquenched of flame though swift the flood assails,Reducing many lustrous to the lean:Be thou my star, and thou in me be seenTo show what source divine is, and prevails.Long watches through, […]