The Lost Mistress

All's over, then: does truth sound bitter

As one at first believes?

Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter

About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,

I noticed that, to-day;

One day more bursts them open fully

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?

May I take your hand in mine?

Mere friends are we,--well, friends the merest

Keep much that I resign:

For each glance of the eye so bright and black,

Though I keep with heart's endeavour,--

Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,

Though it stay in my soul for ever!--

Yet I will but say what mere friends say,

Or only a thought stronger;

I will hold your hand but as long as all may,

Or so very little longer!

The Death Bed

We watch'd her breathing through the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,

So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers

To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,

Our fears our hopes belied--

We thought her dying when she slept,

And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,

And chill with early showers,

Her quiet eyelids closed--she had

Another morn than ours.

The King of The Sea

The hoarse wind blows colder;

Lights shine in the town.

She will start from her slumber

When gusts shake the door;

She will hear the winds howling,

Will hear the waves roar.

We shall see, while above us

The waves roar and whirl,

A ceiling of amber,

A pavement of pearl.

Singing, "Here came a mortal,

But faithless was she.

And alone dwell for ever

The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,

When soft the winds blow;

When clear falls the moonlight;

When spring-tides are low:

When sweet airs come seaward

From heaths starr'd with broom;

And high rocks throw mildly

On the blanch'd sands a gloom:

Up the still, glistening beaches,

Up the creeks we will hie;

Over banks of bright seaweed

The ebb-tide leaves dry.

We will gaze, from the sand-hills,

At the white, sleeping town;

At the church on the hill-side--

And then come back down.

Singing, "There dwells a lov'd one,

But cruel is she.

She left lonely for ever

The kings of the sea."

My heart aches

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,--

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

Moving from the mind into the heart

Moving from the Mind into the Heart

mind finds a path

to struggle along

never reaching the goal

heart knows it already rests

in the path of something wonderful

it can not escape

mind seeks to hold on to

a still point

of final understanding

heart knows it is being held

by an unmoving whirlwind

that it will never comprehend

mind tries to feel safe enough

to allow love

out into the open

heart knows love is never cautious

and can not be kept secret

once all hope of refuge is abandoned

how much I travelled

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer rul'd as his demesne;

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men

Looked at each other with a wild surmise--

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

A sweet Day

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky:

 The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie;

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like seasoned timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turns to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

She walks in beauty

She walks in Beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

Moving from the Mind into the Heart

Mind finds a path

to struggle along

never reaching the goal

heart knows it already rests

in the path of something wonderful

it cannot escape

mind seeks to hold on to

a still point

of final understanding

heart knows it is being held

by an unmoving whirlwind

that it will never comprehend

mind tries to feel safe enough

to allow love

out into the open

heart knows love is never cautious

and can not be kept secret

once all hope of refuge is abandoned

PROVERBS OF LOVE

PROVERBS OF LOVE

--One can be unhappy by oneself, but to be truly

tormented, one must love.

--Love is harder to accept than to give.

--To love is to embrace life. To love fully is to embrace

both death and life.

--The secret of happiness is simple: Be loving, giving,

caring.

Why, then, are so many unhappy?

Because they are afraid.

--Love only yourself, and you are alone.

Love only one other, and the two of you are alone.

Love only your family, and your family is alone.

Love only your nation, and your nation is alone.

There can be no communion, not even with yourself,

except through love of God.

I AM WITH YOU

PRETEND THIS POEM IS ME,

AND I AM WITH YOU

Pretend this poem is me, and I am with you;

I hold you in the circle of my fire.

Come into me, and time and space will vanish,

You and I alone, joined at the root.

There is a special room where I am with you;

I close the door and you are in my arms.

You become my skin, my self, my world,

Till I go back to sleep in lonely darkness.

So we defeat the miles and months between us;

We make love in our hearts if not in touch.

You are more to me in hope and passion

Than any man who brushes by my day

Fade far away

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-ey'd despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Ere I was old

Ere I was old.

Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere,

Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!

O Youth! for years so many and sweet

'Tis known, that Thou and I were one,

I'll think it but a fond conceit--

It cannot be, that Thou art gone!

Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:--

And thou wert aye a masker bold!

What strange disguise hast now put on,

To make believe, that Thou art gone?

I see these locks in silvery slips,

This drooping gait, this altered size:

But springtide blossoms on thy lips,

And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!

Life is but thought: so think I will

That Youth and I are house-mates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning,

But the tears of mournful eve!

Where no hope is, life's a warning

That only serves to make us grieve,

When we are old:

That only serves to make us grieve

With oft and tedious taking-leave,

Like some poor nigh-related guest,

That may not rudely be dismist.

Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while,

And tells the jest without the smile.

Deep in my soul

Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells,

Lonely and lost to light for evermore,

Save when to thine my heart responsive swells,

Then trembles into silence as before.

There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp

Burns the slow flame, eternal--but unseen;

Which not the darkness of Despair can damp,

Though vain its ray as it had never been.

 Remember me--Oh! pass not thou my grave

Without one thought whose relics there recline:

The only pang my bosom dare not brave

Must be to find forgetfulness in thine.

My fondest--faintest--latest accents hear--

Grief for the dead not Virtue can reprove;

Then give me all I ever asked--a tear,

The first--last--sole reward of so much love!