I.
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye!
They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
Without some stir of heart, some malady;
They could not sit at meals but feel how well
It soothed each to be the other by;
They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep
But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

II.
With every morn their love grew tenderer,
With every eve deeper and tenderer still;
He might not in house, field, or garden stir,
But her full shape would all his seeing fill;
And his continual voice was pleasanter
To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;
Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,
She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.

III.
He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,
Before the door had given her to his eyes;
And from her chamber-window he would catch
Her beauty farther than the falcon spies;
And constant as her vespers would he watch,
Because her face was turn'd to the same skies;
And with sick longing all the night outwear,
To hear her morning-step upon the stair.

IV.
A whole long month of May in this sad plight
Made their cheeks paler by the break of June:
"To morrow will I bow to my delight,
"To-morrow will I ask my lady's boon."--
"O may I never see another night,
"Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love's tune."--
So spake they to their pillows; but, alas,
Honeyless days and days did he let pass;

V.
Until sweet Isabella's untouch'd cheek
Fell sick within the rose's just domain,
Fell thin as a young mother's, who doth seek
By every lull to cool her infant's pain:
"How ill she is," said he, "I may not speak,
"And yet I will, and tell my love all plain:
"If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,
"And at the least 'twill startle off her cares."

VI.
So said he one fair morning, and all day
His heart beat awfully against his side;
And to his heart he inwardly did pray
For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide
Stifled his voice, and puls'd resolve away--
Fever'd his high conceit of such a bride,
Yet brought him to the meekness of a child:
Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!

VII.
So once more he had wak'd and anguished
A dreary night of love and misery,
If Isabel's quick eye had not been wed
To every symbol on his forehead high;
She saw it waxing very pale and dead,
And straight all flush'd; so, lisped tenderly,
"Lorenzo!"--here she ceas'd her timid quest,
But in her tone and look he read the rest.

VIII.
"O Isabella, I can half perceive
"That I may speak my grief into thine ear;
"If thou didst ever any thing believe,
"Believe how I love thee, believe how near
"My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve
"Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear
"Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live
"Another night, and not my passion shrive.

IX.
"Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,
"Lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,
"And I must taste the blossoms that unfold
"In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time."
So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,
And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:
Great bliss was with them, and great happiness
Grew, like a ***** flower in June's caress.

X.
Parting they seem'd to tread upon the air,
Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart
Only to meet again more close, and share
The inward fragrance of each other's heart.
She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair
Sang, of delicious love and honey'd dart;
He with light steps went up a western hill,
And bade the sun farewell, and joy'd his fill.

XI.
All close they met again, before the dusk
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
All close they met, all eves, before the dusk
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,
Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.
Ah! better had it been for ever so,
Than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.

XII.
Were they unhappy then?--It cannot be--
Too many tears for lovers have been shed,
Too many sighs give we to them in fee,
Too much of pity after they are dead,
Too many doleful stories do we see,
Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;
Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse
Over the pathless waves towards him bows.

XIII.
But, for the general award of love,
The little sweet doth **** much bitterness;
Though Dido silent is in under-grove,
And Isabella's was a great distress,
Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove
Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less--
Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

XIV.
With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,
Enriched from ancestral merchandize,
And for them many a weary hand did swelt
In torched mines and noisy factories,
And many once proud-quiver'd ***** did melt
In blood from stinging whip;--with hollow eyes
Many all day in dazzling river stood,
To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

XV.
For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,
And went all naked to the hungry shark;
For them his ears gush'd blood; for them in death
The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:
Half-ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel,
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.

XVI.
Why were they proud? Because their marble founts
Gush'd with more pride than do a wretch's tears?--
Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts
Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?--
Why were they proud? Because red-lin'd accounts
Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?--
Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,
Why in the name of Glory were they proud?

XVII.
Yet were these Florentines as self-retired
In hungry pride and gainful cowardice,
As two close Hebrews in that land inspired,
Paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies,
The hawks of ship-mast forests--the untired
And pannier'd mules for ducats and old lies--
Quick cat's-paws on the generous stray-away,--
Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.

XVIII.
How was it these same ledger-men could spy
Fair Isabella in her downy nest?
How could they find out in Lorenzo's eye
A straying from his toil? Hot Egypt's pest
Into their vision covetous and sly!
How could these money-bags see east and west?--
Yet so they did--and every dealer fair
Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.

XIX.
O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!
Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,
And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,
And of thy roses amorous of the moon,
And of thy lilies, that do paler grow
Now they can no more hear thy ghittern's tune,
For venturing syllables that ill beseem
The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.

**.
Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale
Shall move on soberly, as it is meet;
There is no other crime, no mad assail
To make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:
But it is done--succeed the verse or fail--
To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet;
To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,
An echo of thee in the north-wind sung.

XXI.
These brethren having found by many signs
What love Lorenzo for their sister had,
And how she lov'd him too, each unconfines
His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad
That he, the servant of their trade designs,
Should in their sister's love be blithe and glad,
When 'twas their plan to coax her by degrees
To some high noble and his olive-trees.

XXII.
And many a jealous conference had they,
And many times they bit their lips alone,
Before they fix'd upon a surest way
To make the youngster for his crime atone;
And at the last, these men of cruel clay
Cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone;
For they resolved in some forest dim
To **** Lorenzo, and there bury him.

XXIII.
So on a pleasant morning, as he leant
Into the sun-rise, o'er the balustrade
Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent
Their footing through the dews; and to him said,
"You seem there in the quiet of content,
"Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade
"Calm speculation; but if you are wise,
"Bestride your steed while cold is in the skies.

XXIV.
"To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount
"To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;
"Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count
"His dewy rosary on the eglantine."
Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont,
Bow'd a fair greeting to these serpents' whine;
And went in haste, to get in readiness,
With belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman's dress.

XXV.
And as he to the court-yard pass'd along,
Each third step did he pause, and listen'd oft
If he could hear his lady's matin-song,
Or the light whisper of her footstep soft;
And as he thus over his passion hung,
He heard a laugh full musical aloft;
When, looking up, he saw her features bright
Smile through an in-door lattice, all delight.

XXVI.
"Love, Isabel!" said he, "I was in pain
"Lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow:
"Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain
"I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow
"Of a poor three hours' absence? but we'll gain
"Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.
"Good bye! I'll soon be back."--"Good bye!" said she:--
And as he went she chanted merrily.

XXVII.
So the two brothers and their ******'d man
Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno's stream
Gurgles through straiten'd banks, and still doth fan
Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream
Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan
The brothers' faces in the ford did seem,
Lorenzo's flush with love.--They pass'd the water
Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.

XXVIII.
There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,
There in that forest did his great love cease;
Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,
It aches in loneliness--is ill at peace
As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:
They dipp'd their swords in the water, and did tease
Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur,
Each richer by his being a murderer.

XXIX.
They told their sister how, with sudden speed,
Lorenzo had ta'en ship for foreign lands,
Because of some great urgency and need
In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.
Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow's ****,
And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands;
To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,
And the next day will be a day of sorrow.

***.
She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;
Sorely she wept until the night came on,
And then, instead of love, O misery!
She brooded o'er the luxury alone:
His image in the dusk she seem'd to see,
And to the silence made a gentle moan,
Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,
And on her couch low murmuring, "Where? O where?"

XXXI.
But Selfishness, Love's cousin, held not long
Its fiery vigil in her single breast;
She fretted for the golden hour, and hung
Upon the time with feverish unrest--
Not long--for soon into her heart a throng
Of higher occupants, a richer zest,
Came tragic; passion not to be subdued,
And sorrow for her love in travels rude.

XXXII.
In the mid days of autumn, on their eves
The breath of Winter comes from far away,
And the sick west continually bereaves
Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay
Of death among the bushes and the leaves,
To make all bare before he dares to stray
From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel
By gradual decay from beauty fell,

XXXIII.
Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes
She ask'd her brothers, with an eye all pale,
Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes
Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale
Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes
Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom's vale;
And every night in dreams they groan'd aloud,
To see their sister in her snowy shroud.

XXXIV.
And she had died in drowsy ignorance,
But for a thing more deadly dark than all;
It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance,
Which saves a sick man from the feather'd pall
For some few gasping moments; like a lance,
Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall
With cruel pierce, and bringing him again
Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.

XXXV.
It was a vision.--In the drowsy gloom,
The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot
Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb
Had marr'd his glossy hair which once could shoot
Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom
Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute
From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears
Had made a miry channel for his tears.

XXXVI.
Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake;
For there was striving, in its piteous tongue,
To speak as when on earth it was awake,
And Isabella on its music hung:
Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,
As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung;
And through it moan'd a ghostly under-song,
Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.

XXXVII.
Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright
With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof
From the poor girl by magic of their light,
The while it did unthread the horrid woof
Of the late darken'd time,--the murderous spite
Of pride and avarice,--the dark pine roof
In the forest,--and the sodden turfed dell,
Where, without any word, from stabs he fell.

XXXVIII.
Saying moreover, "Isabel, my sweet!
"Red whortle-berries droop above my head,
"And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;
"Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed
"Their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat
"Comes from beyond the river to my bed:
"Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,
"And it shall comfort me within the tomb.

XXXIX.
"I am a shadow now, alas! alas!
"Upon the skirts of human-nature dwelling
"Alone: I chant alone the holy mass,
"While little sounds of life are round me knelling,
"And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,
"And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,
"Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,
"And thou art distant in Humanity.

XL.
"I know what was, I feel full well what is,
"And I should rage, if spirits could go mad;
"Though I forget the taste of earthly bliss,
"That paleness warms my grave, as though I had
"A Seraph chosen from the bright abyss
"To be my spouse: thy paleness makes me glad;
"Thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel
"A greater love through all my essence steal."

XLI.
The Spirit mourn'd "Adieu!"--dissolv'd, and left
The atom darkness in a slow turmoil;
As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft,
Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil,
We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft,
And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil:
It made sad Isabella's eyelids ache,
And in the dawn she started up awake;

XLII.
"Ha! ha!" said she, "I knew not this hard life,
"I thought the worst was simple misery;
"I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife
"Portion'd us--happy days, or else to die;
"But there is crime--a brother's ****** knife!
"Sweet Spirit, thou hast school'd my infancy:
"I'll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes,
"And greet thee morn and even in the skies."

XLIII.
When the full morning came, she had devised
How she might secret to the forest hie;
How she might find the clay, so dearly prized,
And sing to it one latest lullaby;
How her short absence might be unsurmised,
While she the inmost of the dream would try.
Resolv'd, she took with her an aged nurse,
And went into that dismal forest-hearse.

XLIV.
See, as they creep along the river side,
How she doth whisper to that aged Dame,
And, after looking round the champaign wide,
Shows her a knife.--"What feverous hectic flame
"Burns in thee, child?--What good can thee betide,
"That thou should'st smile again?"--The evening came,
And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed;
The flint was there, the berries at his head.

XLV.
Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard,
And let his spirit, like a demon-mole,
Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,
To see skull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole;
Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr'd,
And filling it once more with human soul?
Ah! this is holiday to what was felt
When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.

XLVI.
She gaz'd into the fresh-thrown mould, as though
One glance did fully all its secrets tell;
Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know
Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;
Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow,
Like to a native lily of the dell:
Then with her knife, all sudden, she began
To dig more fervently than misers can.

XLVII.
Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon
Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies,
She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone,
And put it in her *****, where it dries
And freezes utterly unto the bone
Those dainties made to still an infant's cries:
Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care,
But to throw back at times her vei

But oh, I suppose she was ugly; she wasn't elegant;
I hadn't yearned for her often in my prayers.
Yet holding her I was limp, and nothing happened at all:
I just lay there, a disgraceful load for her bed.
I wanted it, she did too; and yet no pleasure came
from the part of my sluggish ***** that should bring joy.
The girl entwined her ivory arms around my neck
(her arms were whiter than the Sithonian snows) ,
and gave me greedy kisses, thrusting her fluttering tongue,
and laid her eager thigh against my thigh,
and whispering fond words, called me the lord of her heart
and everything else that lovers murmur in joy.
And yet, as if chill hemlock were smeared upon my body,
my numb limbs would not act out my desire.
I lay there like a log, a fraud, a worthless weight;
my body might as well have been a shadow.
What will my age be like, if old age ever comes,
when even my youth cannot fulfill its role?
Ah, I'm ashamed of my years. I'm young and a man: so what?
I was neither young nor a man in my girlfriend's eyes.
She rose like the sacred priestess who tends the undying flame,
or a sister who's chastely lain at a dear brother's side.
But not long ago blonde Chlide twice, fair Pitho three times,
and Libas three times I enjoyed without a pause.
Corinna, as I recall, required my services
nine times in one short night - and I obliged!
Has some Thessalian potion made my body limp,
injuring me with noxious spells and herbs?
Did some witch hex my name scratched on crimson wax
and stab right through the liver with slender pins?
By spells the grain is blighted and withers to worthless weeds;
by blighting spells the founts run out of water.
Enchantment strips the oaks of acorns, vines of grapes,
and makes fruit fall to earth from unstirred boughs.
Such magic arts could also sap my virile powers.
Perhaps they brought this weakness on my thighs,
and shame at what happened, too; shame made it all the worse:
that was the second reason for my collapse.
Yet what a girl I looked at and touched - but nothing more!
I clung to her as closely as her gown.
Her touch could make the Pylian sage feel young again,
and make Tithonus friskier than his years.
This girl fell to my lot, but no man fell to hers.
What will I ask for now in future prayers?
I believe the mighty gods must rue the gift they gave,
since I have treated it so shabbily.
Surely, I wanted entry: well, she let me in.
Kisses: I got them. To lie at her side: There I was.
What good was such great luck - to gain a powerless throne?
What did I have, except a miser's gold?
I was like the teller of secrets, thirsty at the stream,
looking at fruits forever beyond his grasp.
Whoever rose at dawn from the bed of a tender girl
in a state fit to approach the sacred gods?
I suppose she wasn't willing, she didn't waste her best
caresses on me, try everything to excite me!
That girl could have aroused tough oak and hardest steel
and lifeless boulders with her blandishments.
She surely was a girl to rouse all living men,
but then I was not alive, no longer a man.
What pleasure could a deaf man take in Phemius' song
or painted pictures bring poor Thamyras?
But what joys I envisioned in my private mind,
what ways did I position and portray!
And yet my body lay as if untimely dead,
a shameful sight, limper than yesterday's rose.
Now, look! When it's not needed, it's vigorous and strong;
now it asks for action and for battle.
Lie down, there - shame on you! - most wretched part of me.
These promises of yours took me before.
You trick your master, you made me be caught unarmed,
so that I suffered a great and sorry loss.
Yet this same part my girl did not disdain to take
in hand, fondling it with a gentle motion.
But when she saw no skill she had could make it rise
and that it lay without a sign of life,
'You're mocking me, ' she said. 'You're crazy! Who asked you
to lie down in my bed if you don't want to?
You've come here cursed with woolen threads by some Aeaean
witch, or worn out by some other love.'
And straightway she jumped up, clad in a flowing gown
(beautiful, as she rushed barefoot off) ,
and, lest her maids should know that she had not been touched,
began to wash, concealing the disgrace.

Locksley Hall

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.--

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

And she turn'd--her ***** shaken with a sudden storm of sighs--
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes--

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong";
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long."

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

Is it well to wish thee happy?--having known me--to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

What is this? his eyes are heavy; think not they are glazed with wine.
Go to him, it is thy duty, kiss him, take his hand in thine.

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought:
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand--
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand!

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,
Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool!

Well--'t is well that I should bluster!--Hadst thou less unworthy proved--
Would to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?
I will pluck it from my *****, tho' my heart be at the root.

Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come
As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perish'd; sweetly did she speak and move;
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?
No--she never loved me truly; love is love for evermore.

Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,
To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years,
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry.
'T is a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee rest.
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.
Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

"They were dangerous guides the feelings--she herself was not exempt--
Truly, she herself had suffer'd"--Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it--lower yet--be happy! wherefore should I care?
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.
I have but an angry fancy; what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,
When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men:

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

So I triumph'd ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry,
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint:
Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point:

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher,
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain--
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine--

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd,--
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.

Or to burst all links of habit--there to wander far away,
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag;

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree--
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,
In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.

There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space;
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run,
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks,
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books--

Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!

Mated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime?
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time--

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day;
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun:
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun.

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.

Ay, this is freedom!--these pure skies
  Were never stained with village smoke:
The fragrant wind, that through them flies,
  Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.
Here, with my rifle and my steed,
  And her who left the world for me,
I plant me, where the red deer feed
  In the green desert--and am free.

For here the fair savannas know
  No barriers in the bloomy grass;
Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,
  Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.
In pastures, measureless as air,
  The bison is my noble game;
The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
  The branches, falls before my aim.

Mine are the river-fowl that scream
  From the long stripe of waving sedge;
The bear that marks my weapon's gleam,
  Hides vainly in the forest's edge;
In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;
  The brinded catamount, that lies
High in the boughs to watch his prey,
  Even in the act of springing, dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane
  Fling their huge arms across my way,
Gray, old, and cumbered with a train
  Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray!
Free stray the lucid streams, and find
  No taint in these fresh lawns and shades;
Free spring the flowers that scent the wind
  Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere
  The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here,
  With roaring like the battle's sound,
And hurrying flames that sweep the plain,
  And smoke-streams gushing up the sky:
I meet the flames with flames again,
  And at my door they cower and die.

Here, from dim woods, the aged past
  Speaks solemnly; and I behold
The boundless future in the vast
  And lonely river, seaward rolled.
Who feeds its founts with rain and dew;
  Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,
And trains the bordering vines, whose blue
  Bright clusters tempt me as I pass?

Broad are these streams--my steed obeys,
  Plunges, and bears me through the tide.
Wide are these woods--I thread the maze
  Of giant stems, nor ask a guide.
I hunt till day's last glimmer dies
  O'er woody vale and grassy height;
And kind the voice and glad the eyes
  That welcome my return at night.

[Dedicated to Allan Bennett]


I

Hail to the golden One
Seen in the midmost Sun !
Hail to the golden beard and golden lips,
His whole lige golden to the finger-tips !
Hail to the golden hair in golden showers
Hiding the eyes like blue blue lotus-flowers !
His name is Ut, for He
Hath risen above all things that be.

II

Ardent and white, the Lord
Whirls forth a strident sword.
Its blade is broader than the great World-Ash ;
Its edge is keener than the lightning flash.
Brighter than all the lights of heaven, it whirls
Out in a chaos of creative curls
And sheathes itself in Me,
Arisen above all things that be.

III
Even as the burning tongue
Og God to God that clung
Dissolved his being to a nameless naught,
Brake all the wings and waves of time and thought,
So in the quivering flame that hurled
Its founts of life to the remotest world
Supreme stood Death, and sware
Destruction to all things that were !

IV

Child, father, warrior,
I worshipped thee before ;
Friend, bridegroom, now I yield me to the rod.
My God, and very God of very God
As breath, as death, as all, as naught, unknown,
Known, is there not an end, when one alone
Stand I, and thou, and He
Arisen above all things that be?

ALL the heavy days are over;
Leave the body's coloured pride
Underneath the grass and clover,
With the feet laid side by side.
Bathed in flaming founts of duty
She'll not ask a haughty dress;
Carry all that mournful beauty
To the scented oaken press.
Did the kiss of Mother Mary
Put that music in her face?
Yet she goes with footstep wary,
Full of earth's old timid grace.
'**** the feet of angels seven
What a dancer glimmering!
All the heavens bow down to Heaven,
Flame to flame and wing to wing.

Bartered tears with your love adorn
Twin streams from pure, spring founts born
Sappy pores gushing with showers of contrition on christening morn
Exchanged with vows that o'er time were weathered and torn
Briny waves of doubt crested; fealties' banks shorn
Now bottled memories silted with salty tears forlorn
Eroding tear ducts innundated then with passing time worn   
Brackish vapor distilled with rotting dreams; with nauseous fumes borne
Corroded promises mired in a dry bed of scorn
Cloaked in callous foliage; spited with thistle and thorn
Meeting at the jaded fork; once vibrant streams solemnly mourn
Stagnant puddles awaiting reincarnation; at next season's fertile rains reborn

There is nothing worse than choosing to break your own heart. Because you knew that if you chose to stay, your world would shrink until it crushes you apart. There are things you simply outgrow, like shirts and dresses that start exposing parts of you you’d rather keep to yourself. Memories that have fallen flat, you become two dimensional reruns of the past. Wells you have run dry, you need to leave and start digging for new founts. But don’t get me wrong, you can always stay.  But if you stay too long, you may become someone who has simply stayed behind.

Day 1
The door was left open I didn’t need the key to find my way in. I saw the desperation in the darkness, whimpering that I see the lines and edges obscured by shadows left by the one who lived there before me. I swipe my hand across the walls, patting recklessly for a switch that has to be there somewhere, only to find my hands covered in the filth that have settled there for too long, it claims all the walls as its own. But I was right to assume that all houses have lights to be turned on, the brightness of which at first will be unknown. So, I reach, and I flick the switch, and I see it half-glow- tired and overused yet eager to bid hello.

Day 4
The boxes come one by one and I am careful as to where they are laid. No, not there, in the puddle of murky water. Not there near the hole on the floor. Not there next to the pile of used…I don’t know what those are. Too *****, too filthy, too unpolished. Place it on those three spots that have been wiped down and cleaned, adorned by roses and fences, maintained by the past resident to gleam.

Day 11
I can’t sleep. This house is too foreign my body refuses to let the air sink into its pores.

Day 29
I wake up today refusing to believe that the rest of this house will be any better. I am carefully planning how to reach those three clean spots without my toes touching any of the grime. I tiptoe, like a hungry teenager during midnight, only to smack into the door frame. And I see lines. No, I didn’t have a concussion, there were really lines drawn on the side of the door frame: 1982, 1992, 1996, 2008, 2014. And for some reason, I lay back on the slender piece of wood and I draw a line right above my head as well, 2015: 158 cm.

Day 56
I stepped outside today to catch my breath, trying to find the same air that filled my lungs 7,463 km away.
I try looking for the same sun. The dimmed lights inside is starting to engulf my soul that I refuse to believe that my feet would not plunge into the darkened floors, I would not move anymore. I look across the street and I see my neighbors trimming their garden. I realize that not all things are simply given, not all things simply sprout, the filth will not blow itself out, nor will the light bulbs brighten itself. It stays as is because I simply let it be. In this life, you don’t always get to choose how everything starts, but you get to decide how it ends.


Day 180
Tonight, I’m sleeping over at a friend’s. The house is bigger and has more…food. It smells of cinnamon and peppermint or something foreign. But that just it, it’s…foreign. My body can’t seem to settle its bones on the proportions these chairs were carved out to have. I start missing new familiarities: that crack near my counter that I turned into a mail holder, that small stool that always trips me up on my way out but I never really moved, or that strong scent of aged wood which constantly reminds me where I’m at. It’s not exactly the best. But it has a warmth that tells me I will be missed if I ever decide to go anywhere else.

Day 240
I haven’t done the dishes for almost a week now nor have I done any form of “cleaning” that my mom would probably start questioning life when she sees the state of this house. I’m amazed by how it still holds itself together instead of choking me with the loam I made myself. Thank God houses aren’t people who hurt when they’ve been hurt because no one really likes crying alone. But sometimes alone is what we should be to remind ourselves that our two feet can still hold us up.

Day 320
They ask me what house I liked better. My heart was still left in the other.

Day 350
They asked me what house I like better. I’m not so sure.

Day 428
They asked what house I liked better, I still like the other. But it isn’t home anymore.

You see, home isn’t always where you’d like to invite people to stay, a place built by love and dreams, or where your heart is. Sometimes home is made by your screams of pain, it has become a dwelling place for your broken heart. Sometimes home is where you only stay for a while because it cannot contain your wandering heart. Sometimes home is there simply to tolerate and remind you that you can feel, that you may have left a piece of you with someone else but all pieces can be replaced. Sometimes home is where time is the fastest and no work is done, a place that takes you places just by sitting around.
Sometimes home is where you don’t want to be in because you want to know what else you can be out there.

Darling, in this world, there will always be better houses but better is not always what we need.

I've scanned a star-strewn sky before
With land-shapes bathed in inky white
And swept by chilling, thrilling winds--
What oft I've seen, I taste tonight!

For countless open founts would yield
A quenching draught; I'd go my way--
But from my Jewelly-arboured springs:
Joys twice-inspired! Oh, may I stay?

(For J.B.)

Beneath long lashes, misty clad,
      Your limpid eyes are sometimes sad;
            They bring to mind a homeless waif
                  Engulfed in rain with nowhere safe

Most times I find a cheerful light
      Within your eyes that sparkles bright,
            And though my thoughts I try to hide
                  My happiness wells up inside

At dawn I see your eyes aglow
      Like founts through which your passions flow;
            And when I’m low they always loom
                  Like morning glories through the gloom

Your smile ashine beneath my gaze
      Effulgent eyes beam all ablaze:
            A look, a touch, a kiss I yearn,
                  You slowly make my body burn

While at your side and in a heap
      I scanned your eyes, half closed, asleep,
            And as you slept with pillow clutched,
                  Your eyelids with my lips I touched

And if you’ve ever wondered why
      I try to search within each eye,
            Though past is past, your eyes remind
                  Of bygone times when love was kind

Yet, though your eyes still cast a spell
      They seem to bid a fond farewell,
            Reflecting but a fading storm
                  Although I know your thoughts are warm

But now our paths will part, alas,
      For good things always come to pass;
            Perhaps it lies within God’s ken
                  That someday we may meet again

~
Bring your whirlwinds with you;
in the snow angel summer
bring Margot the sun.

In the hour of red glare
a rush to pick slowberries
before getting caught up in the silk.

Prisms, mirrors, lenses!
strategies for combatting visibility:
keep your eyes closed,
face away from the window.

The myriad threads of people in hiding,
they eat their own web each day,
and yet something always shines
in the heart's secret annex.

Men and women are
separated from each other,
the girls are on a train
to the Bergen-Belsen,
"white founts falling
in the courts of the sun."

Margot now cries quietly;
so silently she weeps over
sunshine and hate.
~

The lost elk on blue pine mountain,
Where all the stunted world is small,
Know the face of winter as it founts,
Above tree lines, trumpet all is cold.

Delicious eyes of magic fire,
Warm shafts that finger forth a touch
Of Love;
Enticing my desire
To surge through lancing beams
As rolling waves o’erride the ebb,
Which sheens, a mirror of the sky,
Leaves pools of cool tranquillity,
Enriched by sprinkled stars of pollen-
That fell from flowers, that hug the heaven:
Hidden beyond the misty trees,
Which blossom founts of rustling leaves.
   These forks of light lash through the woods,
   From dawning suns that melt the ocean floods.

PAUL BUTTERS

The lost elk on blue pine mountain,
Where all the stunted world is small,
Know the face of winter as it founts,
Above tree lines, trumpet all is cold.

The lost elk on blue pine mountain,
Where all the stunted world is small,
Know the face of winter as it founts,
Above tree lines, trumpet all is cold.

Ponder:
How founts evoke
some kid 'neath weight of wishing
our masks feign smiles as players strut...
And scene.

I can find no beauty in my face;
There is no sun in my eyes
Nor morning song in my cheeks,
The swell of my lips is lacking.
There is no autumn with which I am comparable
Nor spring bloom that resembles the limp stalks I call my body.
Yet I do not resent the sparkling founts of summer or the youthful blushes of earth;
For though I am a frozen excess
My mind revels in gardens.

I've scanned a star-strewn sky before
With land-shapes bathed in inky white
And swept by chilling, thrilling winds--
What oft I've seen, I taste tonight!

For countless open founts would yield
A quenching draught; I'd go my way--
But from my Jewelly-arboured springs:
Joys twice-inspired! Oh, may I stay?

(For J.B.)

Have I not written a single sincere line,
Before, it all came with effort forced
Or, in absence of one that could endorse
These sentiments given-free of mine.
But now i believe that I could speak free
And be listened to with full attention,
And it is no doubt my every intention
To return the favour of her gifted glee.
If i must sleep then i must die,
But to spend an evening ever repining
When before me this lovey sun is shining
Begs to question the very reason why.
Be still you fool, my heart of mine
It is with a purpose we are here
To live in the living present
With the ones you love near.

...

And when I am a nerve .
Bare and vulnerable
With words serve
A felling comfortable
You're of a like to me
And I myself in you
Guide me make me see
For me it's all so new
I feel your presence
Like the temperate breeze
A flower blooming in pleasance
Opening with ease.
I could spend hours
Amongst this flower
My head so far above
There is no power
In which we should cower
For all we need is love

...

Oh, Light up the moon my love
Light up the moon and see
That all heavenly bodies
Exist in reflection of thee

Oh, raise the dawn my darling
Raise  the dawn and find
That all these insecurities
Exist only in the mind

Oh, stay strong my sweet
Stay strong today
My love I give to thee
In all charitable ways

Not words nor actions
Could adequately display
The love I feel
Each and every day

So light up the moon my love
Raise the dawn and see
That you are my universe
Containing all things dear to me
...

I could have a platue of green pastures
On the loftiest of mounts
But I would be in her company
In liue of golden founts
And if it is she went away
I'd mark the time with bated breath
And if it surpassed but a day
I'd mark me empty with nothing left
I could praise in all convieable ways
The beauty of which she possess
But it would all pale and certainly fail
From what reality undresses
Have not worry nor restrain
But take comfort here in my embrace
I Feel not doubt or pain
When I look upon your face
I could stay awhile and with a smile
Forget these worlds of ours
And how he mocks the minding clock
Chiming upon the hours.
Other lovers swinging with their fist
With a waton force
But by chance they miss
And find purchase in remorse
But our hands are not for violence
But for caring touches
And if one of us were beaten
We'll be the others crutches
...

I've seen some love fail hard and soft
From a scratch or a killing blow
And some may casually  scoff
When i say mines aloft and theirs not so.
They'll call me a naive fool
And bound to fall,
I'll respond in certainty
That our love conquers all.
Her happiness, her happiness,
It happens to be,
The greatest thing
That matters to me.
To see them eyes the least bit teary
What a constant fear!
I'll strive until i grow, grow ever weary
To dry the smallest tear.
She brings me elation
With the selfsame caring heat
The sun brings to everything
Underneath his celestial seat
I have not lived until i loved;
Not like a child in apprehension,
But one the comes with reassurance
And with the purest of intentions.
I’ve had some moments
Of lasting regret
But in this moment
I do not fret.
It comes easy
When we speak
And my passion here
Is never meek
I'll love you
To the very end
Whether as a darling
Or a friend.

Don’t be distracted by what you see
this commentary defying note
of the norm that most agree
define a world that is not me
confusion should be assumed
then put aside as a ruse
I’m the puzzle with a pen
conveyed by jests I’ll explain

I understand your response
is a mirror of the past
what’s concrete is then based
on a plane that’s all too flat
the breadth of life reflected there
is only based on the frame’s size
be it held in the hand
or hung to cover a full wall

all the tribes are not the same
the dogma set is self-involved
put to books or passed by rote
arrayed against a foreign world
to put a label on my head
borrow robes that may not fit
a state of fact will only lie
if the box is not my own

emotion springs from different founts
this is the measure of who I am
squint into reflections glare
step away from mob’s howling
it’s a challenge to relate
to the outsider that does not match
still I exist with a request
to be loved for who I am.

© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180419.