And now a few poor moments,
Between life and death,
May be proven all too ample
For love's breath!
Seed that promised blossom,
Withered in the mould!
Pale petals overblowing
Failing from the gold!
I well believe the fault lay
More with me than you,
But I feel the shadow closing
Cold about us two.
An hour may yet be yielded us,
Or a very little more
Then a few tears, and silence
For evermore, Lily,
For evermore!
II.-EARLY LOVE
early love was only dream! Still a dream too fair for earth,
Hallowed in a faint far gleam,
Where the fairest flowers have birth,
Let it rest! no stain e'er trouble
Magic murmur, limpid bubble!
There two spirits in the calm
Of moonlight memory may go,
Finding pure refreshing balm,
When life traileth wounded, slow
Along dim ways of common dust,
As dull lives of mortals must.
Early love, fair fount of waters,
Ever by enchantment flowing,
Where two snakes, her innocent daughters,
Were wont to swim among the blowing,
Wilding flowers thou knowest well,
In the wood of our sweet spell!
Never Fear found out the place,
Never eyes nor feet profane!
Of our innocent youth and grace
Love was born; if born to wane,
We will keep remembrance holy
From the soil of care and folly.
No weariness of life made wise,
No canker in the youngling bud,
No lustre failing from our eyes,
Nor ardour paling in the blood!
Neither ever seemed less fair
To the other playing there.
Still asleep, we drift asunder,
Who met and loved but in a dream;
Nor kissing closely, woke to wonder
Why we are not what we seem !
Fairy bloom dies when we press
Wings young zephyr may caress.
Fare you well! more might have been !
Nay, we know more might not be !
A moment only I may lean
On your bosom, ere you flee,
Ere the weary sultry day
Hide my morning and my May!
Yet a fairy fountain glistens
Under soft moon-lighted leaves,
And my wistful spirit listens
For a voice that glows and grieves,
Breathing, when my heart would fail,
Youth from yonder fairy vale,
Where sings a nightingale.
III.-LOVE HIDING.
OVE was playing hide and seek, And we deemed that he was gone, Tears were on my withered cheek
For the setting of our sun;
Dark it was around, above,
But he came again, my love!
Chill and drear in wan November,
We recall the happy spring,
While bewildered we remember
When the woods began to sing,
All alive with leaf and wing,
Leafless lay the silent grove;
But He came again, my love!
And our melancholy frost
Woke to radiance in His rays, Who wore the look of one we lost In the far away dim days;
No prayer, we sighed, the dead may move, Yet he came again, my love!
Love went to sleep, but not for ever,
And we deemed that he was dead;
Nay, shall aught avail to sever
Hearts who once indeed were wed?
Garlands for his grave we wove,
But he came again, my love!
(FROM "A LAY OF CIVILISATION.")
FROM where our patriot sailor on his column
Stands, with the lion of England at his feet,
Among the fountains, looking toward the towers,
The banded towers of Westminster, beyond
Green trees, by Thames, to Lambeth, London roars
Eastward, loud leagues of palaces for men
Who toil to accumulate, around the dome,
Where warrior Wellington by Nelson sleeps,
Flows to four towers, phantoms of the past,
In whose dread dungeons linger shadowy sighs
From ruined lives of all the slow sad years;
On, where the navies largesse of world-wealth
Lavish on quays vociferous (yet we
Pine ever ailing, surfeited, unfed),
By that great arsenal of war-weapons,
Forged with tremendous clangour, to God's sea.
And westward, London roars round congregated
Palaces, where men squander. Of the crowds
Our eyes encounter, some are sorrowful,
Long uncompanioned of sweet Hope, the bride,
Withering mournful; some are jubilant,
Sunny and strong with youth, or strenuous,
Of glad demeanour; listless, languid these;
But most are weary in this Babylon,
Whether men idle, or contend for bubbles;
The happiest are they who minister.
Beyond these regions, reaches of dim street,
A sullen labyrinth of ill-omened hovels:
Ah! dull, grey, grovelling populations, ye
That are rank human soil, wherein we force
Our poor pale virtues, and our venomous sins
Of gorgeous growth, our proxy-piety,
Official food, that yields no sustenance,
But chokes with outworn fantasy free life,
What hope, O people? Red convulsive strife
With those whom circumstance made masters, then
Brief moaning silence under other lords?
And yet what ask ye? Sick men from a feast
Rise loathing; health can relish his poor crust,
The pure soul hath her panoply of light,
In direst dungeon radiating heaven;
Ensphered in her own atmosphere of joy
Sees no deformity; while tyrants tread
Their marble halls, to find them torture-chambers;
A graceless prison all his fair demesne
To some illiberal, illustrious fool,
Perchance ye, ground to powder in God's mill, May serve more than who sleep in delicate death, With rarest incense in the mummy-fold,
O whirling wheels! O throngs of murmuring men!
Where is the goal of infinite endeavour?
And where your haven, O ye fleeting faces?
High Westminster, like some tall ghostly father
Of olden time, stands wildered, while for crowds
Of modern men, swift eddying at his feet,
His reverend grandeur void of consolation
Broods; for no warriors, consecrated kings,
Kings who were crowned here through the centuries,
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