SOLITUDE AND THE LILY

THE LILY

I BEND above the moving stream,
And see myself in my own dream,-
Heaven passing, while I do not pass.
Something divine pertains to me,
Or I to it ;- reality

Escapes me on this liquid glass.

SOLITUDE

The changeful clouds that float or poise on high,

Emblem earth's night and day of history :
Renew'd for ever, evermore to die.

Thy life-dream is thy fleeting loveliness;
But mine is concentrated consciousness,
A life apart from pleasure or distress.
The grandeur of the Whole
Absorbs my soul,

While my caves sigh o'er human littleness.

THE LILY

Ah, Solitude,

Of marble Silence fit abode !
I do prefer my fading face,
My loss of loveliness and grace,

With cloud-dreams ever in my view;
Also the hope that other eyes
May share my rapture in the skies,
And, if illusion, feel it true.

THE SLAVE

A SEA-PIECE, OFF JAMAICA

BEFORE us in the sultry dawn arose

Indigo-tinted mountains; and ere noon We near'd an isle that lay like a festoon,

And shar’d ́the ocean's glittering repose.

We saw plantations spotted with white huts; Estates midst orange groves and towering trees;

Rich yellow lawns embrown'd by soft degrees;

Plots of intense gold freak'd with shady nuts.

A dead hot silence tranced sea, land, and sky :

And now a long canoe came gliding forth, Wherein there sat an old man fierce and swarth,

Tiger-faced, black-fang'd, and with jaundiced eye.

Pure white, with pale blue chequer'd, and red fold

Of head-cloth 'neath straw brim, this Master wore ;

While in the sun-glare stood with highrais'd oar

A naked Image all of burnish'd gold.

BALLAD OF HUMAN LIFE

WHEN we were girl and boy together,
We toss'd about the flowers
And wreath'd the blushing hours
Into a posy green and sweet.

I sought the youngest, best,
And never was at rest

Till I had laid them at thy fairy feet.
But the days of childhood they were fleet,
And the blooming sweet-briar-breath'd
weather,

When we were boy and girl together.

Then we were lad and lass together,
And sought the kiss of night
Before we felt aright,
Sitting and singing soft and sweet.
The dearest thought of heart
With thee 't was joy to part,
And the greater half was thine, as meet.
Still my eyelid 's dewy, my veins they beat
At the starry summer-evening weather,
When we were lad and lass together.

And we are man and wife together,
Although thy breast, once bold
With song, be clos'd and cold

Bencath flowers' roots and birds' light feet.
Yet sit I by thy tomb,

And dissipate the gloom

With songs of loving faith and sorrow sweet. And fate and darkling grave kind dreams do cheat,

That, while fair life, young hope, despair and death are,

We're boy and girl, and lass and lad, and man and wife together.

SONGS FROM "DEATH'S JEST

BOOK" I

TO SEA, TO SEA!

To sea, to sea! The calm is o'er ;
The wanton water leaps in sport,
And rattles down the pebbly shore ;

The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort, And unseen Mermaids' pearly song Comes bubbling up, the weeds among. Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar: To sea, to sea! the calm is o'er.

ATHULF'S DEATH SONG

A CYPRESS-BOUGH, and a rose-wreath sweet,
A wedding-robe, and a winding-sheet,
A bridal-bed and a bier.
Thine be the kisses, maid,
And smiling Love's alarms
And thou, pale youth, be laid
In the grave's cold arms.
Each in his own charms,

Death and Hymen both are here;
So up with scythe and torch,
And to the old church porch,
While all the bells ring clear:
And rosy, rosy the bed shall bloom,
And earthy, earthy heap up the tomb.

Now tremble dimples on your cheek,
Sweet be your lips to taste and speak,
For he who kisses is near :