English

'Twas in a fever-dream I saw and knew
Its mottled tiger-bloom of jaundiced gold,
Its fleshy leaves that dropped with clammy dew,
Its swarthy blotches hideous to behold.
In the black, noisome marsh that horror grew,
And slimy, snake-like weeds coiled round it, fold on fold.

The heavy, starless, cypress roof o'erhead
Left all below to fitful glare and gloom,
Where danced the wayward witch-fires of the dead
Like fiends carousing in a pillared tomb.
The sagging vines and knotted knees upspread

I.

The hill-tops are fair in the bright, cloudless day,
The valleys are sweet with the blossoms of May;
I gaze from the cliff where my Castle shall stand —
The grandest and proudest of all in the land;

With turrets and columns of Parian white,
Blocks seamless and clear as if quarried from light;
With portal wide open to high arching hall,
And threshold emblazoning welcome to all.

No outlook so varied, no structure so fair;

TO F. W. F .

Young men should not write sonnets, if they dream
Some day to reach the bright bare seats of fame:
To such, sweet thoughts and mighty feelings seem
As though, like foreign things, they rarely came.
Eager as men, when haply they have heard
Of some new songster, some gay-feathered bird,
That hath o'er blue seas strayed in hope to find
In our thin foliage here a summer home,
Fain would they catch the bright things in their mind,
And cage them into sonnets as they come.

Merrily shines the summer sun
Over the isle of Kent;
Merrily chasing, the ripples run,
Frolic the breezes in airy fun,
Robin, wren, mocking-bird every one
Join in the merriment.

But here in the oak-trees' solemn shade,
Where the sentinel cedars stand,
The old, old church that the fathers made
Looms forsaken and disarrayed,
Frowning on Maryland.

Where the voice of praise went ringing free,
The fox has made his home;
The wild-bee hives in the sacristy;
And the spectral moon looks in to see

Miranda mine, thy beauty is more rare
Than May-day flowers that deck the meadows green;
Thy lips are sweeter than the lily fair
Plucked fresh at dawn from out the glittering sheen;
The mantling color of thy cheek's bright hue
Makes pale and shames the blood of damask-rose;
Thine eye preserves the violet's pensive blue,
Which, born of light, with Heaven's own color glows;
Thy neck, full sweet, seems like a flowery lane,
Or garden pathway, to thy gentle breast,
Where love, that knows not passion's earthly stain,

Some hearts go hungering through the world,
And never find the love they seek;
Some lips with pride or scorn are curled
To hide the pain they may not speak.
The eye may flash, the mouth may smile,
The voice in gladdest music thrill,
And yet beneath them all the while
The hungry heart be pining still.

These know their doom, and walk their way
With level steps and steadfast eyes,
Nor strive with Fate, nor weep, nor pray;
While others, not so sadly wise,
Are mocked by phantoms evermore,

I.

W E shall all meet again,
Not in the wood or plain,
Nor by the lake's green marge;
But we shall meet once more
By a far greener shore,
With our souls set at large.

II.

We all shall never stand
On Rothay's white-lipped strand,
And hear the far sheep-cries:
The Wansfell wind may blow,
But not to kindle now
The bright fire in our eyes.

III.

The three cleft mountains stand
In their own treeless land,
Where we all stood and wondered.

Deep loving, well knowing
His world and its blindness,
A heart overflowing
With measureless kindness,

Undaunted in labor
(And Death was a trifle),
Steel-true as a saber,
Direct as a rifle,

All Man in his doing,
All Boy in his laughter,
He fronted, unruing,
The Now and Hereafter,

A storm-battling cedar,
A comrade, a brother —
Oh, such was our leader,
Beloved as no other!

When weaker souls faltered
His courage remade us,
Whose tongue never paltered,

We two were lovers; and side by side,
One rare and beautiful summer-tide,
Like children roaming in light and dew,
Broad fields and woodlands and meadows through,
Their faces radiant with morning gleams,
We sought the scenes of our early dreams.
We crossed the waste of the broad blue deep,
Saw sunbeams gild it, or fierce winds sweep;
But all its changes were fair to me,
For calm and tempest were sweet with thee.

By English hedges we took our way,
And watched the bloom of the fragrant may;

One more fond kiss, my Romeo, and away!
The eastern hills are tonehed with rosy light.
Ah love, with thee dun night is brightest day,
And brightest day, when thou art gone, is night.
How blest the hours swift-borne on starry wheels!
How heavy waiting on the laggard sun!
A weary void till day her eyelids seals,
And Heaven's high warders guard love's fortress won.
Dear Romeo, go! Yet I would have thee stay.
O pilfering morn, that robs the jewelled skies!
Purloining gems within thy mantle gray,