cry, though no one should echo—
Though no one to listen should stand,
I shall dare with my burden the darkness
And I shall not retreat from this land;
Though I’m hurled ’neath the feet of the millions,
Who struggle their places to keep,
The sea-nymphs still bathe with my Fancy
And the Dryads still sweeten my sleep.
Though I’m crushed, cast away and forgotten—
Though I’m buried in the dust of their cars,
I can see through their madness above me—
I can feel the quick pulse of the stars;
Though my head be the foot-stool of tyrants,
Though my back be a step to their throne,
I still dwell with the kings of Orion
And I walk with the sun-queen alone.
Though the fire of my youth should consume me—
Though my body a brimstone should be,
I can draw on the clouds for their water
And behold! I’ve of water a sea;
And though roofless, and friendless, and hopeless,
And loveless, and godless I stand,
The waves of my Life shall continue
To murmur and laugh on the Strand.
Upon the Peak of Sanneen
My soul and I, upon the peak
Of Sanneen grim and grey,
Sat musing in the twilight of
A sombre summer day.
“Great Saturn and the Moon are gone
Together o’er the sea;
But will great Saturn e’er return
Should he elope with thee?
Ah well, who knows? when thou art gone
I, too, shall sink within the brine—
I, too, shall sail above this peak
And signal yonder groves of pine.
Behold the melancholy sky
Of this forgotten land;
On this side are the valleys bleak,
On this, the desert sand.”
“I hear the moaning of the wind,”
My sad companion said;
“The snow is gathering in me
And the night is overhead.
Long have we dwelt together, friend,
In our sweet ennui;
But were I now to take my leave,
Alas, what would I be?”
“O, think not of departing,
Ah, too young I am to die;
I’ll find the magic wings; and there
Still hangs a friendly sky.
Let us above these pines, and clouds,
And scents awhile yet dwell;—
Where wouldst thou go, if thou wert now
To sigh a last farewell?”
Thou seest the busy elements
Dissolving one by one
The souls that are acquitted,
For the all-absorbing sun.
Let’s sing the song of darkness then;
Thy prison is the Whole;—
What canst thou do, where wilt thou go,
What wilt thou be, my Soul?
Thou wouldst not be the air that weighs
Upon the rising dust;
Thou wouldst not be the fog that chokes
The air in savage lust.
Thou wouldst not be the clouds that block
The smoke’s way to a star;
Nor linger in the guilty tears
Of clouds before the bar.
Thou wouldst not be the rain that taunts
The all-devouring sea,
Itself destroying many a nest
In bush and rock and tree.
Thou wouldst not be the thunder’s tongue
Spell-binding all the spheres;
Nor wouldst thou be the lightning blade
That stabs and disappears.
Thou wouldst not be the dew that falls
Alike on thorn and flower;
Nor even the morning zephyr
That blows o’er den and bower.
Thou wouldst not be the virgin snow
Set free from yonder clouds,
Only to melt beneath the feet
Of surging human crowds.
“No! none of these,” my Soul replied;
“I’ll shiver ever thrall;
O let me rise, for I would be
The sky above them all.”
The Philistine
The cricket to the corn-crake came one day,
Shivering, yet buzzing in his wanton way,
And said: “I’m slain
By hunger, brother, turn thou not from me;
’Tis winter, and I only beg of thee
A little grain.”
The corn-crake grinned and said in tone sublime:
“Where wert thou hidden in the harvest time,
Thou dinning drone?
Why didst thou not come with us to the fields
To gather something for thy winter meals
Of what had grown?”
“O, I was entertaining with my rhymes
The vineyards, and the fig trees, and the thymes
The summer long.”
“No then,” replied the corn-crake, “not a seed
Have I for such as thou; go home and feed
Upon thy Song.”
My Burnoose
Into this world they tell me I was sent
Wrapt in a burnoose, which was rudely rent
And flung away, by her who first didst touch
My steaming flesh; I never loved her much,
The surly, stolid, sordid, spectral hag:
For never would my star of fortune lag—
No dwarf of earth to oppose my will would dare—
If my sebaceous burnoose she did spare,
And if around my neck, the ajouz says,
It hung, locked in a charm, for twenty days.
But ever since the amulet was torn,
The curse of gods and jinn and men I’ve worn;
And to my flesh it stuck—a Nessus shirt—
Despite the oozing blood, and not spurt
Of power, alas! is left me to control
The stinging tongue of an avenging soul.
A Spring Dirge
Sad, sad, sad—
In vain thou comest, Spring;
Sad, sad, sad—
In vain thy birds all sing:
Perfumeless is thy rose;
Thy breeze, which softly blows,
Disturbs my sea of woes,
Ay, Death is on the wing.
Gone, gone, gone—
Go seek her, mocking Spring;
Gone, gone, gone—
Aside thy garlands fling;
Destroy thy laughing bower;
Call back an April shower
To weep with me this hour:
He came, not reckoning.
Love, love, love—
What sendest thou with Spring?
Love, love, love—
What tidings these birds bring!
They tell me they can hear
Thee, in a higher sphere;
But can that dry a tear,
Or give my wish a wing?
“Here she is: O take her not away so soon!
Spare her youth—the fatal cup from her withhold!
Let her groan within my arms in life’s forenoon;
Let me still my soul within her eyes unfold.”
God of Love! my faith in thee is not yet gray:
Grant that she may walk again,
Free from suffering and pain—
Give her life to see the altar’s light one day.
In the night, before the day that never came,
On the way with poppies
