To see the infinite pity of this place, The mangled limb, the devastated face, The innocent sufferer smiling at the rod – A fool were tempted to deny his God. He sees, he shrinks. But if he gaze again, Lo, beauty springing from the breast of pain! He marks the sisters on the mournful shores; […]

I KNEW a silver head was bright beyond compare, I knew a queen of toil with a crown of silver hair. Garland of valour and sorrow, of beauty and renown, Life, that honours the brave, crowned her himself with the crown. The beauties of youth are frail, but this was a jewel of age. Life, […]

LONG must elapse ere you behold again Green forest frame the entry of the lane – The wild lane with the bramble and the brier, The year-old cart-tracks perfect in the mire, The wayside smoke, perchance, the dwarfish huts, And ramblers’ donkey drinking from the ruts: – Long ere you trace how deviously it leads, […]

DO you remember – can we e’er forget? – How, in the coiled-perplexities of youth, In our wild climate, in our scowling town, We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed and feared? The belching winter wind, the missile rain, The rare and welcome silence of the snows, The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night, The […]

THE tropics vanish, and meseems that I, From Halkerside, from topmost Allermuir, Or steep Caerketton, dreaming gaze again. Far set in fields and woods, the town I see Spring gallant from the shallows of her smoke, Cragged, spired, and turreted, her virgin fort Beflagged. About, on seaward-drooping hills, New folds of city glitter. Last, the […]

I HEARD the pulse of the besieging sea Throb far away all night. I heard the wind Fly crying and convulse tumultuous palms. I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand, And flailing fans and shadows of the palm; The heaven all moon and wind and the blind vault; The keenest planet slain, […]

[At my departure from the island of Apemama, for which you will look in vain in most atlases, the King and I agreed, since we both set up to be in the poetical way, that we should celebrate our separation in verse. Whether or not his Majesty has been true to his bargain, the laggard […]

IN all the grove, nor stream nor bird Nor aught beside my blows was heard, And the woods wore their noonday dress – The glory of their silentness. From the island summit to the seas, Trees mounted, and trees drooped, and trees Groped upward in the gaps. The green Inarboured talus and ravine By fathoms. […]

AS the single pang of the blow, when the metal is mingled well, Rings and lives and resounds in all the bounds of the bell, So the thunder above spoke with a single tongue, So in the heart of the mountain the sound of it rumbled and clung. Sudden the thunder was drowned – quenched […]

LET now your soul in this substantial world Some anchor strike. Be here the body moored; – This spectacle immutably from now The picture in your eye; and when time strikes, And the green scene goes on the instant blind – The ultimate helpers, where your horse to-day Conveyed you dreaming, bear your body dead. […]

WE uncommiserate pass into the night From the loud banquet, and departing leave A tremor in men’s memories, faint and sweet And frail as music. Features of our face, The tones of the voice, the touch of the loved hand, Perish and vanish, one by one, from earth: Meanwhile, in the hall of song, the […]

SING me a song of a lad that is gone, Say, could that lad be I? Merry of soul he sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye. Mull was astern, Rum on the port, Eigg on the starboard bow; Glory of youth glowed in his soul: Where is that glory now? Sing me […]

(On Receiving a Dedication) BLOWS the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying, Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now, Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying, My heart remembers how! Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places, Standing stones on the vacant wine-red […]

THE embers of the day are red Beyond the murky hill. The kitchen smokes: the bed In the darkling house is spread: The great sky darkens overhead, And the great woods are shrill. So far have I been led, Lord, by Thy will: So far I have followed, Lord, and wondered still. The breeze from […]

(To an air of Schubert) GIVE to me the life I love, Let the lave go by me, Give the jolly heaven above And the byway nigh me. Bed in the bush with stars to see, Bread I dip in the river – There’s the life for a man like me, There’s the life for […]

A Galloway Legend From the bonny bells of heather They brewed a drink long-syne, Was sweeter far than honey, Was stronger far than wine. They brewed it and they drank it, And lay in a blessed swound For days and days together In their dwellings underground. There rose a king in Scotland, A fell man […]

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand; The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand; The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea; And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee. They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day; But ’twas […]

A Legend Of The West Highlands This is the tale of the man Who heard a word in the night In the land of the heathery hills, In the days of the feud and the fight. By the sides of the rainy sea, Where never a stranger came, On the awful lips of the dead, […]

Marquesan Manners I. THE PRIEST’S VIGIL In all the land of the tribe was neither fish nor fruit, And the deepest pit of popoi stood empty to the foot. {2a} The clans upon the left and the clans upon the right Now oiled their carven maces and scoured their daggers bright; They gat them to […]

A Legend Of Tahiti TO ORI A ORI Ori, my brother in the island mode, In every tongue and meaning much my friend, This story of your country and your clan, In your loved house, your too much honoured guest, I made in English. Take it, being done; And let me sign it with the […]