It is not death, that sometime in a sigh
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;
That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow;
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal spright
Be lapped in alien clay and laid below;
It is not death to know this, but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go
So duly and so oft, and when grass waves
Over the past-away, there may be then
No resurrection in the minds of men.
Br every
sweet tradition of true hearts,
Graven by Time, in love with his own lore;
By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts,
Wherein Love died to be alive the more;
Yea, by the sad impression on the shore
Left by the drowned Leander, to endear
That coast forever, where the billows' roar
Moaneth for pity in the poet's ear;
By Hero's faith, and the foreboding tear
That quenched her brand's last twinkle in its fall;
By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear
That sighed around her flight; I swear by all,
The world shall find such pattern in my act,
As if Love's great examples still were lacked.
Look how the golden ocean shines above
Its pebbly stones, and magnifies their girth;
So does the bright and blessed light of love
Its own things glorify, and raise their worth.
As weeds seem flowers beneath the flattering brine,
And stones like gems, and gems as gems indeed,
Even so our tokens shine; nay, they outshine
Pebbles and pearls, and gems and coral weed;
For where be ocean waves but half so clear,
So calmly constant, and so kindly warm,
As Love's most mild and glowing atmosphere,
That hath no dregs to be upturned by storm?
Thus, sweet, thy gracious gifts are gifts of price,
And more than gold to doting Avarice.
THERE is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave under the deep, deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound
No voice is hushed-no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.
THE curse of Adam, the old curse of all
Though I inherit in this feverish life
Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife,
And fruitless thought, in Care's eternal thrall,
Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall
I taste, through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife.
Then what was Man's lost Paradise! - how rife
Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall!
Such as our own pure passion still might frame,
Of this fair earth, and its delightful bowers,
If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came
To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flowers:
But, O! as many and such tears are ours,
As only should be shed for guilt and shame!
LOVE, dearest lady, such as I would speak,
Lives not within the humor of the eye;
Not being but an outward fantasy,
That skims the surface of a tinted cheek
Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak,
As if the rose made summer,- - and so lie
Amongst the perishable things that die,
Unlike the love which I would give and seek,
Whose health is of no hue to feel decay
With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime.
Love is its own great loveliness alway,
And takes new lustre from the touch of time;
Its bough owns no December and no May,
But bears its blossom into Winter's clime.
"THE LAST MAN."
'T WAS in the year two thousand and one
A pleasant morning of May,
I sat on the gallows-tree all alone,
A chanting a merry lay,—
To think how the pest had spared my life,
To sing with the larks that day!
When up the heath came a jolly knave,
all in rags:
It made me crow to see his old duds
All abroad in the wind, like flags:-
up he came to the timbers' foot
And pitched down his greasy bags.—
Good Lord! how blithe the old beggar was
At pulling out his scraps,
The very sight of his broken orts
Made a work in his wrinkled chaps :
"Come down," says he, "you Newgate-bird, And have a taste of my snaps!"
Then down the rope, like a tar from the mast
I slided, and by him stood;
But I wished myself on the gallows again
When I smelt that beggar's food,-
A foul beef-bone and a mouldy crust;
"O!" quoth he, "the heavens are good!
Then after this grace he cast him down.
Says I, "You'll get sweeter air
pace or two off, on the windward side,"
For the felons' bones lay there.--
But he only laughed at the empty skulls.
And offered them part of his fare.
"I never harmed them, and they won't harm me : Let the proud and the rich be cravens!"
I did not like that strange beggar man,
He looked so up at the heavens.
Anon he shook out his empty old poke;
"There's the crumbs," saith he, "for the ravens !
It made me angry to see his face,
It had such a jesting look;
But while I made up my mind to speak,
A small case-bottle he took;
Quoth he, "Though I gather the green water-cress,
My drink is not of the brook!"
Full manners-like he tendered the dram.
O, it came of a dainty cask!
But, whenever it came to his turn to pull,
"Your leave, good sir, I must ask;
But I always wipe the brim with my sleeve,
When a hangman sups at my flask!”
And then he laughed so loudly and long,
The churl was quite out of breath;
I thought the very Old One was come
To mock me before my death,
And wished I had buried the dead men's bones
That were lying about the heath!
But the beggar gave me a jolly clap
"Come, let us pledge each other,
For all the wide world is dead beside,
And we are brother and brother
I've a yearning for thee in my heart,
As if we had come of one mother.
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