Lyrics, &c.



       

• Let no man ask thee of anything
• Not yearborn between Spring & Spring.
• More of all worlds than he can know,
• Each day the single sun doth show.
• A trustier gloss than thou canst give
• From all wise scrolls demonstrative,
• The sea doth sigh and the wind sing.

• Let no man awe thee on any height
• Of earthly kingship's mouldering might.
• 10The dust his heel holds meet for thy brow
• Hath all of it been what both are now;
• And thou and he may plague together
• A beggar's eyes in some dusty weather
• When none that is now knows sound or sight.

• Crave thou no dower of earthly things
• Unworthy Hope's imaginings.
• To have brought true birth of Song to be
• And to have won hearts to Poesy,
• Or any where in the sun or rain
• 20To have loved and been beloved again,
• Is loftiest reach of Hope's bright wing.

• The wild waifs cast up by the sea
• Are diverse ever seasonably.
• Even so the soul-tides still may land
• A separate different drift upon the sand.
• But one the sea is evermore:
• And one be still, 'twixt shore and shore,
• As the sea's life, thy soul in thee.

• Let thy soul strive that still the same
• Be early friendship's sacred flame.
• The affinities have strongest part
• In youth, and draw men heart to heart:
• As life wears on and finds no rest,
• The individual in each breast
• Is tyrannous to sunder them.

• Dost vaunt the Poet? Musing on Muse upon
• The work another's mind hath done;—
• Its beauties first shall Do first its beauties touch thy thought?
• And Then ponder ing what thyself hast wrought;—
• Thou first shalt sigh Is first thy word, “Alas! how far
• Behind conception's guiding star!”?
• True Poet elsewise thou art none.

• Say, hast thou pride? How then may fit
• 30Thy mood with flatterers' silk-spun wit?
• Haply the sweet voice lifts thy crest,
• A breeze of fame made manifest.
• Nay, but then chaf'st at flattery? Pause:
• Be sure that it thy wrath is not because
• It makes thee feel thou lovest it.

• In the life-drama's stern cue-call,
• A friend's a part well-prized by all:
• And if thou meet an enemy,
• What art thou that none such should be?
• 40Even so: but if the two parts run
• Into each other and grow one,
• Then comes the curtain's cue to fall.

• Whate'er by other's need is claimed
• More than by thine,—to him unblamed
• Resign it: and if he should hold
• What more than he thou lack'st, bread, gold,
• Or any good whereby we live,—
• To thee such substance let him give
• Freely: nor he nor thou be shamed.

• Strive that thy works prove equal: lest
• That work which thou hast done the best
• Should come to be to thee at length
• (Even as to Envy seems the strength
• Of others) hateful and abhorr'd,—
• Thine own above thyself made lord,—
• Of self-rebuke the bitterest.

• 50Unto the man of yearning thought
• And aspiration, to do nought
• Is in itself almost an act,—
• Being chasm-fire and cataract
• Of the soul's utter depths unseal'd.
• Yet woe to thee if once thou yield
• Unto the act of doing nought!

• How callous seems beyond revoke
• The clock with its last listless stroke!
• How much too late at last!—to snatch trace
• 60 A glance at the foredawning watch
  Added TextThe hour on its forewarning face,
• The thing thou hast not dared to do!. . . .
• Behold, this may be thus! Ere true
• It prove, arise and bear thy yoke.

• Let lore of man's all Theology
• Be to thy soul what it can be:
• But know,—the Power that fashions man
• Measured not out thy little span
• For thee to take the meting-rod
• In turn, and so approve on God
• 70Thy science of Theometry.

• To God at best, to Chance at worst,
• Give thanks for good things, last as first.
• But windstrown blossom is that good
• Whose apple is not gratitude.
• Even if no prayer uplift thy face,
• Let the sweet right to render grace
• As thy soul's cherished child be nurs'd.

• Didst ever say, “Lo, I forget”?
• Such thought was to remember yet.
• 80As in a gravegarth, count to see
• The monuments of memory.
• Be this thy soul's appointed scope:—
• Gaze onward without claim to hope,
• Nor, gazing backward, brook court regret.

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• Amber, jewel and amethyst,
• And all for my lady's wrist.

• The amethyst and the amber fair,
• And all for my lady's hair.

• Argent amber and amethyst,
• And all for my lady's wrist.

• Argent's heavy and amber rare,
• And all for my lady's hair.

 

• A honey-cell's in the honeysuckle,
• 10And the honey-bee knows it well.

• The honey-comb has a heart of honey,
• And the humming bee's so bonny.

• A honey-flower's the honeysuckle,
• And the bee's in the honey-bell.

• The honeysuckle is sucked of honey,
• And the bee is heavy and bonny.

 

• Honey-flowers for the honey-comb
• And the honey bee's from home.

• A honeycomb and a honeyflower,
• 20And the bee shall have his hour.

• A honeyed heart for the honeycomb
• And the humming bee flies home.

• A heavy heart in the honey flower,
• And the bee has had his hour.

 

• Brown shell first for the butterfly
• And a bright wing by and by.

• Butterfly, good bye to your shell,
• And, bright wings, speed you well.

• Bright lamplight for the butterfly
• 30And a burnt wing by and by.

• Butterfly, alas for your shell,
• And bright wings, fare you well.

 

• Lost love-labour and lullaby,
• And lowly let love lie.

• Lost love-morrow and love-fellow
• And love's life lying low.

• Lovelorn labour and life laid by
• And lowly let love lie.

• Late love-longing and life-sorrow
• 40And love's life lying low.

 

• Beauty's body and benison
• With a bosom-flower new blown.

• Bitter beauty and blessing bann'd
• With a breast to burn and brand.

• Beauty's bower in the dust o'erblown
• With a bare white breast of bone.

• Barren beauty and bower of sand
• With a blast on either hand.

 

• Buried bars in the breakwater
• 50And bubble of the brimming weir.

• Body's blood in the breakwater
• And a buried body's beir.

• Buried bones in the breakwater
• And bubble of the brimming brawling weir.

• Bitter tears in the breakwater
• And a breaking heart to bear.

 

• Hollow heaven and the hurricane
• And hurry of the heavy rain.

• Hurried clouds in the hollow heaven
• 60And a heavy rain hard-driven.

• The heavy rain it hurries amain
• And heaven and the hurricane.

• Hurrying wind o'er the heaven's hollow
• And the heavy rain to follow.

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    Oct. 1878

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• Love, I speak to your heart,
• Your heart that is always here.
• Oh draw me deep to its sphere,
• Though you and I are apart;
• And yield, by the spirit's art,
• All Each distant gift s that are is dear.
• O love, my love, you are here!

• Your eyes are afar to-day,
• Yet, love, look now in mine eyes.
• 10 Two hearts sent forth may despise
• All dead things by the way.
• All between is decay,
• Dead hours and this hour that dies,
• O love, look deep in mine eyes!

• Your hands to-day are not here,
• Yet lay them, love, in my hands.
• The hourglass sheds its sands
• All day for the dead hours' bier;
• But now, as two hearts draw near,
• 20 This hour like a flower expands.
• O love, your hands in my hands!

• Your voice is not on the air,
• Yet, love, I can hear your voice:
• It bids my heart to rejoice
• As knowing your heart is there,—
• A music sweet to declare
• The truth of your steadfast choice.
• O love, how sweet is your voice!

• To-day your lips are afar,
• Yet press drawmy lips to them, love.
• Around, beneath, and above,
• Is frost to bind and to bar;
• But where I am and you are,
• Desire and the fire thereof.
• O kiss me, kiss me, my love!

• Your heart is never away,
• 30 But ever with mine, for ever,
• For ever without endeavour,
• To-morrow, love, as to-day;
• Two blent hearts never astray,
• Two souls no power may sever,
• Together, O my love, for ever!

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• Leaves and rain and the days of the year,
• ( Water-willow and wellaway,)
• All these fall, and my soul gives ear,
• And she is hence who once was here.
• ( With a wind blown night and day.)

• Ah! but now, for a secret sign,
• ( The willow's wan and the water white,)
• In the held breath of the day's decline
• Her very face seemed pressed to mine.
• 10 ( With a wind blown day & night.)

• O love, of my death my life is fain;
• ( The willows wave on the water-way,)
• Your cheek and mine are cold in the rain,
• But warm they'll be when we meet again.
• ( With a wind blown night & day.)

• Mists are heaved and cover the sky;
• ( The willows wail in the waning light,)
• O loose your lips, leave space for a sigh,—
• They seal my soul, I cannot die.
• 20 ( With a wind blown day and night.)

• Leaves and rain and the days of the year,
• ( Water-willow and wellaway,)
• All still fall, and I still give ear,
• And she is hence, and I am here.
• ( With a wind blown night and day.)

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• In this new shade of Death, the show
• Passes me still of form and face;
• Some bent, some gazing as they go,
• Some swiftly, some at a dull pace,
• Not one that speaks in any case.

• If only one might speak!—the one
• Who never waits till I come near;
• But always seated all alone
• As listening to the sunken air,
• 10 Is gone before I come to her.

• O dearest! while we lived and died
• A living death in every day,
• We Some hours we still were sometimes side by side,
• And When where I was you too might stay
• And rest and need not go away.

• O nearest, furthest! Can there be
• At length some hard-earned heart-won home,
• Where,—exile changed for sanctuary,—
• Our lot may fill indeed its sum,
• 20 And you may wait and I may come?

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• We two may end our martyrdom

   

• To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings
• Cleaving the western sky;
• Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings
• Of birds; as if the day's last hour in rings
• Of strenuous flight must die.

• Sun-steeped in fire, the homeward pinions sway
• Above the dovecote-tops;
• And clouds of starlings, ere they rest with day,
• Sink, clamorous like mill-waters, at wild play,
• 10 By turns in every copse:

• Each tree heart-deep the wrangling rout receives,—
• Save for the whirr within,
• You could not tell the starlings from the leaves;
• Then one great puff of wings, and the swarm heaves
• Away with all its din.

• Even thus Hope's hours, in ever-eddying flight,
• To many a refuge tend;
• With the first light she laughed, and the last light
• Glows round her still; who natheless in the night
• 20 At length must make an end.

• And now the mustering rooks innumerable
• Together sail and soar,
• While for the day's death, like a tolling knell,
• Unto the heart they seem to cry, Farewell,
• No more, farewell, no more!

• Is Hope not plumed, as 'twere a fiery dart?
• Therefore,O And oh! thou dying day,
• Even as thou goest must she too depart,
• And Sorrow fold such pinions on the heart
• 30 As will not fly away?

   

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• O leave your hand where it lies cool
• Upon the eyes whose lids are hot:
• Its rosy shade is bountiful
• Of silence, & assuages thought.
• O lay your lips against your hand
• And let me feel your breath through it,
• While through the sense your song shall fit
• The soul to understand.

• The music lives upon my brain
• 10 Between your hands within mine eyes;
• It stirs your lifted throat like pain,
• An aching pulse of melodies.
• Lean nearer, let the music pause:
• The soul may better understand
• Your music, shadowed in your hand,
• Now while the song withdraws.

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• 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
• 10 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?”

• I looked and saw your love
• In the shadow of your heart,
• As a diver sees the pearl
• 20 In the shadow of the sea;
• And I murmured, not above
• My breath, but all apart,—
• “Ah! she you can love, sweet girl,
• And does love, and loves is your love for me?”

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• Ah! dear one, we were young so long,
• It seemed that youth would never go,
• For skies and trees were ever in song
• And water in singing flow
• In the days we never again shall know.
• Alas, so long!
• Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
• Nay, but were we not were both young together?

• Ah! dear one, I've been old so long,
• 10 It seems that age is loth to part,
• Though days and years have never a song,
• And oh! have they still the art
• To warm That warmed the pulses of heart to heart?
• Alas, so long!
• Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
• Nay, but were we not were both young together.

• Ah! dear one, you've been dead so long,—
• How long until we meet again,
• Where hours may never lose their song
• 20 Nor flowers forget the rain
• In that glad noonlight that never shall wane?
• Alas, so long!
• Ah! shall it be when then Spring weather,
• And ah! shall we be young together?

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• Waving whispering trees,
• What do you say to the breeze
• And what says the breeze to you?
• 'Mid passing souls ill at ease,
• Moving murmuring trees,
• Would ye ever wave an Adieu?

• Tossing torturous turbulent seas,
• Winds that wrestle with these,
• Echo heard in the shell,—
• 10'Mid fleeting life ill at ease,
• Restless ravening seas,—
• Would the echo sigh Farewell?

• Surging sumptuous skies,
• For ever a new surprise,
• Clouds eternally new,—
• Is every flake that flies,
• Widening wandering skies,
• For a sign—Farewell, Adieu?

• Sinking suffering heart
• 20That know'st how weary thou art,—
• Soul so fain for a flight,—
• Aye, spread your wings to depart,
• Sad soul and sorrowing heart,—
• Adieu, Farewell, Goodnight.

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• 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,
• 10 Our thoughts are never far apart,
• ThusThough all that draws us heart to heart
• Seems fainter now and now more clear.
• Tonight 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
• 20And 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.

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• There is a cloud above the sunset hill,
• That wends and makes no stay,
• For its goal lies beyond the fiery west;
• A lingering breath no calm can chase away,
• The onward labour of the wind's last will;
• A flying foam that overleaps the crest
• Of the top wave: and in possession still
• A further reach of longing; though at rest
• From all the yearning years,
• 10Together in the bosom of that day
• Ye cling, and with your kisses drink your tears.

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• 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,—
• 10 “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,
• 20Or 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 hate
• That beats in thy heart
  Added Textto thy steps
  in thy breast, O Time?—
• Red strife from the furthest prime,
• And anguish of fierce debate;
• War that shatters her slain,
• 30 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 love
• That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?—
• Thy kisses snatched 'neath the ban
• 40Of 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,
• 50 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?—
• What wouldst say as we go,—
• Atoms that nought can sever
• What thoughts to think by the way?
• From one world circling will
• What Truth may there be to know
• To that at its heart for ever
• And shall we know it one day?
• 60Yet never to know it still.
Added Text
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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