Great men of song, what sing ye? Woodland meadows?
Rocks, trees and rills where sunlight glints to gold?
Sing ye the hills adown whose sides blue shadows
Creep when the westering day is growing old?
Sing ye the brooks where in the purling shallows
The small fish dart and gleam?
Sing ye the pale green tresses of the willows
That stoop to kiss the stream?
Or sing ye burning streets and sweating toil
Where we spawned swarms of men, unendingly,
Above, below, in mart and workshop’s moil
Have quite forgot thee, O mine Arcady?...
My Garden.
With a copy of “Sonnets of this Century.”
This little book, a Garden where the bloom
And fragrance of an hundred years are pent,
To thee, dear girl, at Christmas-tide is sent
By one who breathes with love the sweet perfume
Of such frail flowers. Let aye the world consume
Itself with toil and labour--such are all
Without the bounds of this my garden-wall,
And I, in light, feel not nor heed their gloom.
Come thou into my Garden! Let me show
Thee all the treasures that do lend it grace,
These goodly Sonnets, standing in a row
To tell of joy, tears, love,--life’s madrigal;
And, mistress of the pure enchanted place,
Be thou the fairest Flower among them all!...
Erinnerungen.
Schwer ist mein Herz, und heute kann ich nicht
Mehr lesen--kann nicht denken, leiden mehr.
Aus jeder Ecke kommt ein Schatten her,
Wie aus dem toten Himmel geht das Licht.
Ich sinn’ und sinn’--ich sehe ihn noch, wie er
Vor langen Jahren zartlich schaut’ mich an
Eh’ unsere reine Liebe erst begann
Langsam zu sterben, ich zu trauern sehr...
Schwer ist mein Herz. Aus seinen Ecken auch
Kriechen die Schatten, schnell und schneller. Jetzt
Vernimmt mein müdes Ohr den ersten Hauch
Der Winternacht ... Es glimmert Strom und Wald
In dunkler Ferne ... Dies vergeht zuletzt,
Und alles endlich finster ist und kalt...
The Battle Royal.
Thou Battle Royal! Kings and gentlemen
At arms, and lords have fought thee since the mists
Of time, back-rolling, show’d thy mimic lists
And pigmy warriors, mazed and harried then
As now in meshes of thy checkered strife--
Unshielded Pawns, trim Knights and frowning Rooks
Stolid yet quick, and Bishops smug, with looks
A-squint, and King with lame yet endless life.
Thou Battle Royal! Years unnumbered soil
Cards, draughts and dice with myriad grime-worn hands.
Thou, lov’d by dames and lords in all the lands
Of this broad world art still the world’s best play;
Where, as in life, whilst others struggle, toil,
And die, the imperious Queen controls the day!
España.
“Que era, decidme, la nación que un día
Reina del mundo proclamó el destino?...”
_Quintana--Oda a España._
Where now that Nation proud which Destiny
Once did proclaim this world’s all conquering queen?
Where now that sceptre, that bright blazon seen
That mark’d her mistress over land and sea?
A lost emprise, a shattered galleon she,
Sails rent and hull agape that once have been
World-powerful; her rotting masts careen
With each dark surge of long-pent enmity.
On through sea’s salty wastes the tempests spurn,
The waves rebuff her; lights no more there gleam
Nor vergies wave on her high carven beam.
Stilled is the sailor’s jest, the skipper’s song;
In swirling fogs of night she drives along
With Helmsman Death stark-frozen at the stern!...
Love’s Fear.
Virgin art thou and pure, amid a throng
Of such sweet hallowed names as all men praise.
(Grown all too scant in these our latter days!)
To holy hours of old dost thou belong;
Saint Agnès then had heard thine even-song,
Nor left thee, darkling, in Earth’s devious ways.
Thou’rt one with that sweet sisterhood which raise
To “untouched Dian,” all clear streams along,
Their full-voiced anthem. Thou a Vestal art
At true-love’s altar. Atala, and the Maid,
And Mary all are sisters of thy blood!
Thy very name is virgin!... I, afraid,
How shall I press my kisses on thy heart,
Or loose the girdle of thy maidenhood?...
Longings.
“... Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria...”
_Inferno, V, 121._
Far from the sea-girt City that I love,
My wandering ways by care attended lie;
Cold is the azure of this foreign sky,
And strange these clustered stars that burn above.
Out from this loveless land would I remove
To seek thy spring Pierian, never-dry,
Thou thrice-crowned City! Hear my fainting cry.
Let not my passionate longing fruitless prove!
Would I once more might see the dome of gold
Burning aloft, beneath my native sky!
The river, winding near my home of old,
And once again to breathe before I die,
The evening breeze, may it be granted me,
In that fair city by the distant sea!...
The Eighth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace.