in the cold dark night: So we pass cold to age from youth. I, stained and cold and glad to hide O earth, earth, earth, thou yet shalt bow Who art so fair and lifted up, Thou yet shalt drain the bitter cup. Men's eyes that wait upon thee now, You, joy to many a loving heart and light to many eyes: I, lonely in the knowledge earth is full of vanities. Yet when your day is over, as mine is nearly done, And when your race is finished, as mine is almost run, All eyes shall see thee lost and You, like me, shall cross your hands Sing of a heart core-cold and rotten, Sing of a hope springing no more.' 'Sigh for a heart aching and sore.' SEASONS CROCUSES and snowdrops wither, Violets, primroses together, 'I was most true and my own love Fading with the fading Spring betrayed me, I was most true and she would none of me. Before a fuller blossoming. O sweet Summer, pass not soon, Was it the cry of the world that Stay awhile the harvest-moon : O sweetest Summer, do not go, dismayed thee? Love, I had bearded the wide For Autumn's next and next the world for thee.' 'Hark to the sorrowful sound of the sea.' 'Still in my dreams she comes tender and gracious, Still in my dreams love looks out of her eyes: Oh that the love of a dream were veracious, snow. When Autumn comes the days are drear, It is the downfall of the year: Dreary Winter come at last : Or that thus dreaming I might Till Spring and sunlight dawn again. not arise!' 'Oh for the silence that stilleth all sighs!' 7 December 1853. 'I must keep my nestlings warm, lady, Underneath my downy breast: There's your baby to coo and crow to you While I brood upon my nest.' Faint white rose, come lie on my heart, Come lie there with your thorn: For I'll be dead at the vesper-bell And buried the morrow morn.' 'There's blood on your lily breast, lady, Like roses when they blow, And there's blood upon your little hand That should be white as snow: I will stay amid my fellows Where the lilies grow.' 'But it's oh my own own little babe That I had you here to kiss, And to comfort me in the strange next world Though I slighted you so in this.' 'You shall kiss both cheek and chin, mother, And kiss me between the eyes, Or ever the moon is on her way And the pleasant stars arise: You shall kiss and kiss your fill, mother, In the nest of Paradise.' 7 January 1854. A SOUL SHE stands as pale as Parian statues stand; Like Cleopatra when she turned at bay, And felt her strength above the And felt the aspic writhing in her hand. Her face is steadfast toward the shadowy land, For dim beyond it looms the land of day: Her feet are steadfast, all the arduous way That foot-track doth not waver on the sand. She stands there like a beacon through the night, A pale clear beacon where the storm-drift is She stands alone, a wonder deathlywhite : She stands there patient nerved with inner might, Indomitable in her feebleness, Her face and will athirst against the light. 7 February 1854. THE BOURNE UNDERNEATH the growing grass, Underneath the living flowers, Deeper than the sound of showers: There we shall not count the hours By the shadows as they pass. Youth and health will be but vain, Beauty reckoned of no worth : There a very little girth Can hold round what once the earth Seemed too narrow to contain. 17 February 1854. |