Puslapio vaizdai
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May pour for thee this golden wine, brimhigh,

Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.

We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd,

Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky.

Now kiss, and think that there are really those,

My own high-bosomed beauty, who in

crease

Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way!

Through many years they toil; then on a day

They die not, for their life was death, - but cease;

And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.

LXXII. THE CHOICE — II

WATCH thou and fear; tomorrow thou shalt die.

O art thou sure thou shalt have time for death?

Is not the day which God's word promiseth

To come man knows not when? In yonder sky,

Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can I

Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath

Even at this moment haply quickeneth The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight here.

And dost thou prate of all that man shall do?

Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be

Glad in his gladness that comes after thee?

Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to:

Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear.

LXXIII. THE CHOICE - III THINK thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die.

Outstretched in the sun's warmth upon the shore,

Thou say'st: "Man's measured path is all gone o'er

Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh,

Man clomb until he touched the truth; and I,

Even I, am he whom it was destined

for."

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WHAT place so strange, though unrevealed snow

With unimaginable fires arise

At the earth's end, what passion of surprise

Like frost-bound fire-girt scenes of long ago?

Lo! this is none but I this hour; and lo! This is the very place which to mine eyes Those mortal hours in vain immortalize, 'Mid hurrying crowds, with what alone I know.

City, of thine a single simple door,

By some new Power reduplicate, must be Even yet my life-porch in eternity, Even with one presence filled, as once of yore:

Or mocking winds whirl round a chaffstrown floor

Thee and thy years and these my words and me.

LXXXVI. LOST DAYS

THE lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street

Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat

Sown once for food but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?

Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?

Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat

The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway? I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.

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Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air, It shall be sought and not found anywhere.

Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled, Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath

Much mightiness of men to win thee praise.

Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways.

Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path,

Mayst wait the turning of the phials of wrath

For certain years, for certain months and days.

XCII. THE SUN'S SHAME BEHOLDING youth and hope in mockery caught

From life; and mocking pulses that remain

When the soul's death of bodily death is fain;

Honor unknown, and honor known unsought;

And penury's

thought

sedulous self-torturing

On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane;

And longed-for woman longing all in vain

For lonely man

traught;

with love's desire dis

And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness,

Given unto bodies of whose souls men say,

None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they :

Beholding these things, I behold no less The blushing morn and blushing eve confess

The shame that loads the intolerable day.

XCVII A SUPERSCRIPTION

Look in my face; my name is Might-havebeen;

I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;

Unto thine

shell

ear I hold the dead-sea

Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between;

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THREE SHADOWS
[Composed 1876. Published 1881.]

I LOOKED and saw your eyes
In the shadow of your hair,
As a traveller sees the stream

In the shadow of the wood;
And I said, "My faint heart sighs,
Ah me! to linger there,
To drink deep and to dream
In that sweet solitude."

I looked and saw your heart
In the shadow of your eyes,
As a seeker sees the gold

In the shadow of the stream;
And I said, "Ah me! what art

Should win the immortal prize, Whose want must make life cold And Heaven a hollow dream?"

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[Composed 1881. - Published 1881.]

THIN are the night-skirts left behind
By daybreak hours that onward creep
And thin, alas! the shred of sleep
That wavers with the spirit's wind:
But in half-dreams that shift and roll
And still remember and forget,

My soul this hour has drawn your soul
A little nearer yet.

Our lives, most dear, are never near,
Our thoughts are never far apart,
Though all that draws us heart to heart
Seems fainter now and now more clear.
To-night Love claims his full control,

And with desire and with regret
My soul this hour has drawn your soul
A little nearer yet.

Is there a home where heavy earth

Melts to bright air that breathes no pain,
Where water leaves no thirst again
And springing fire is Love's new birth?
If faith long bound to one true goal

May there at length its hope beget.
My soul that hour shall draw your soul
For ever nearer yet.

THE CLOUD CONFINES [Composed 1871. Published 1872.]

THE day is dark and the night

To him that would search their heart;
No lips of cloud that will part
Nor morning song in the light:
Only, gazing alone,

To him wild shadows are shown,
Deep under deep unknown

And height above unknown height.
Still we say as we go,-

"Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day."

The Past is over and fled;

Named new, we name it the old; Thereof some tale hath been told, But no word comes from the dead; Whether at all they be,

Or whether as bond or free,
Or whether they too were we,

Or by what spell they have sped.
Still we say as we go,-

"Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day."

What of the heart of hate

That beats in thy breast, O Time?— Red strife from the furthest prime, And anguish of fierce debate; War that shatters her slain,

And peace that grinds them as grain, And eyes fixed ever in vain On the pitiless eyes of Fate. Still we say as we go,

"Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day."

What of the heart of love

That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?-
Thy kisses snatched 'neath the ban
Of fangs that mock them above;
Thy bells prolonged unto knells,
Thy hope that a breath dispels,
Thy bitter forlorn farewells
And the empty echoes thereof?
Still we say as we go,
"Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day."
The sky leans dumb on the sea,
Aweary with all its wings;
And oh the song the sea sings
Is dark everlastingly.

Our past is clean forgot.
Our present is and is not,
Our future's a sealed seedplot,
And what betwixt them are we?
We who say as we go,

"Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day."

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NOTE. Tradition says that Catherine Douglas, in honor of her heroic act when she barred the door with her arm against the murderers of James the First of Scots, received popularly the name of "Barlass." The name remains to her descendants, the Barlas family, in Scotland, who bear for their crest a broken arm. She married Alexander Lovell of Bolunnie.

A few stanzas from King James's lovely poem, known as The King's Quhair, are quoted in the course of this ballad. The writer must express regret for the necessity which has compelled him to shorten the ten-syllabled lines to eight syllables, in order that they might harmonize with the ballad metre.

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I CATHERINE am a Douglas born,
A name to all Scots dear;

And Kate Barlass they've called me now
Through many a waning year.

This old arm's withered now. 'T was once
Most deft 'mong maidens all
To rein the steed, to wing the shaft,
To smite the palm-play ball.

In hall adown the close-linked dance

It has shone most white and fair;

It has been the rest for a true lord's head, And many a sweet babe's nursing-bed,

And the bar to a King's chambère.
Aye, lasses, draw round Kate Barlass,
And hark with bated breath
How good King James, King Robert's son,
Was foully done to death.

Through all the days of his gallant youth
The princely James was pent,
By his friends at first and then by his foes,
In long imprisonment.

For the elder Prince, the kingdom's heir,
By treason's murderous brood

Was slain; and the father quaked for the child

With the royal mortal blood.

I' the Bass Rock fort, by his father's care,
Was his childhood's life assured;
And Henry the subtle Bolingbroke,
Proud England's King, 'neath the southron
yoke

His youth for long years immured.

Yet in all things meet for a kingly man Himself did he approve;

And the nightingale through his prisonwall

Taught him both lore and love.

For once, when the bird's song drew him close

To the opened window-pane,

In her bowers beneath a lady stood,
A light of life to his sorrowful mood,
Like a lily amid the rain.

And for her sake, to the sweet bird's note,
He framed a sweeter Song,

More sweet than ever a poet's heart
Gave yet to the English tongue.

She was a lady of royal blood;

And when, past sorrow and teen, He stood where still through his crownless years

His Scottish realm had been,

At Scone were the happy lovers crowned, A heart-wed King and Queen.

But the bird may fall from the bough of

youth,

And song be turned to moan,

And Love's storm-cloud be the shadow of Hate,

When the tempest-waves of a troubled State

Are beating against a throne.

Yet well they loved; and the god of Love, Whom well the King had sung,

Might find on the earth no truer hearts His lowliest swains among.

From the days when first she rode abroad
With Scottish maids in her train,

I Catherine Douglas won the trust
Of my mistress sweet Queen Jane.

And oft she sighed, "To be born a King!"
And oft along the way

When she saw the homely lovers pass
She has said, "Alack the day!"

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"And it may be here or it may be there, In the camp or the court," she said: "But for my sake come to your people's

arms

And guard your royal head."

Quoth he, ""T is the fifteenth day of the siege,

And the castle 's nigh to yield."

"O face your foes on your throne," she cried,

"And show the power you wield; And under your Scottish people's love You shall sit as under your shield."

At the fair Queen's side I stood that day
When he bade them raise the siege,
And back to his Court he sped to know
How the lords would meet their Liege.

But when he summoned his Parliament,
The louring brows hung round,
Like clouds that circle the mountain-head
Ere the first low thunders sound.

For he had tamed the nobles' lust

And curbed their power and pride, And reached out an arm to right the poor Through Scotland far and wide; And many a lordly wrong-doer

By the headsman's axe had died.

'T was then upspoke Sir Robert Græme, The bold o'ermastering man:

"O King, in the name of your Three Es

tates

I set you under their ban!

"For, as your lords made oath to you Of service and fealty,

Even in like wise you pledged your oath
Their faithful sire to be: -

"Yet all we here that are nobly sprung
Have mourned dear kith and kin
Since first for the Scottish Barons' curse
Did your bloody rule begin."

With that he laid his hands on his King:"Is this not so, my lords?"

But of all who had sworn to league with him

Not one spake back to his words.

Quoth the King:

"Thou speak'st but for

one Estate,
Nor doth it avow thy gage.

Let my liege lords hale this traitor hence !"
The Græme fired dark with rage:
"Who works for lesser men than himself,
He earns but a witless wage!"

But soon from the dungeon where he lay
He won by privy plots,

And forth he fled with a price on his head To the country of the Wild Scots.

And word there came from Sir Robert Græme

To the King at Edinbro':

"No Liege of mine thou art; but I see From this day forth alone in thee

God's creature, my mortal foe.

"Through thee are my wife and children lost,

My heritage and lands;

And when my God shall show me a way, Thyself my mortal foe will I slay

With these my proper hands."

Against the coming of Christmastide
That year the King bade call

I' the Black Friars' Charterhouse of Perth
A solemn festival.

And we of his household rode with him In a close-ranked company:

But not till the sun had sunk from his throne

Did we reach the Scottish Sea.

That eve was clenched for a boding storm,
'Neath a toilsome moon half seen;
The cloud stooped low and the surf rose
high;

And where there was a line of the sky,
Wild wings loomed dark between.

And on a rock of the black beach-side
By the veiled moon dimly lit,
There was something seemed to heave with
life

As the King drew nigh to it.

And was it only the tossing furze

Or brake of the waste sea-wold? Or was it an eagle bent to the blast? When near we came, we knew it at last For a woman tattered and old.

But it seemed as though by a fire within Her writhen limbs were wrung;

And as soon as the King was close to her, She stood up gaunt and strong.

'T was then the moon sailed clear of the rack

On high in her hollow dome; And still as aloft with hoary crest

Each clamorous wave rang home, Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed Amid the champing foam.

And the woman held his eyes with her

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