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Vainly my heart had with thy sorceries striven: It had no refuge from thy love,—no Heaven But in thy fatal presence;—from afar It owned thy power and trembled like a star O’erfraught with light and splendor. Could I deem How dark a shadow should obscure its beam?— Could I believe that pain could ever dwell Where thy bright presence cast its blissful spell? Thou wert my proud palladium;—could I fear The avenging Destinies when thou wert near?— Thou wert my Destiny;—thy song, thy fame, The wild enchantments clustering round thy name, Were my soul’s heritage, its royal dower; Its glory and its kingdom and its power!

Before you were I loved you and when you were born and when you took your first step Although I did not know good luck I want to say lone penguin keep sturdily waddling in the direction of those frozen mountains sister of desolate sanctity I want to scream Although I did not know you I loved you later on as just a weedy thing a little skeleton I loved Both long pre-you a child myself and as a man in retrospect I loved and I was there while they were raping you I loved although like God

I should be dumb before thee, feathered sage! And gaze upon thy phiz with solemn awe, But for a most audacious wish to gauge The hoarded wisdom of thy learned craw. Art thou, grave bird! so wondrous wise indeed? Speak freely, without fear of jest or gibe— What is thy moral and religious creed? And what the metaphysics of thy tribe? A Poet, curious in birds and brutes, I do not question thee in idle play; What is thy station? What are thy pursuits? Doubtless thou hast thy pleasures—what are they? Or is’t thy wont to muse and mouse at once, Entice thy prey with airs of meditation, And with the unvarying habits of a dunce, To dine in solemn depths of contemplation? There may be much—the world at least says so— Behind that ponderous brow and thoughtful gaze; Yet such a great philosopher should know, It is by no means wise to think always. And, Bird, despite thy meditative air, I hold thy stock of wit but paltry pelf— Thou show’st that same grave aspect everywhere, And wouldst look thoughtful, stuffed, upon a shelf. I grieve to be so plain, renowned Bird— Thy fame’s a flam, and thou an empty fowl; And what is more, upon a Poet’s word I’d say as much, wert thou Minerva’s owl. So doff th’ imposture of those heavy brows; They do not serve to hide thy instincts base— And if thou must be sometimes munching mouse, Munch it, O Owl! with less profound a face.

I Stately, kindly, lordly friend, Condescend Here to sit by me, and turn Glorious eyes that smile and burn, Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed, On the golden page I read. All your wondrous wealth of hair, Dark and fair, Silken-shaggy, soft and bright As the clouds and beams of night, Pays my reverent hand's caress Back with friendlier gentleness. Dogs may fawn on all and some As they come; You, a friend of loftier mind, Answer friends alone in kind. Just your foot upon my hand Softly bids it understand. Morning round this silent sweet Garden-seat Sheds its wealth of gathering light, Thrills the gradual clouds with might, Changes woodland, orchard, heath, Lawn, and garden there beneath. Fair and dim they gleamed below: Now they glow Deep as even your sunbright eyes, Fair as even the wakening skies. Can it not or can it be Now that you give thanks to see? May not you rejoice as I, Seeing the sky Change to heaven revealed, and bid Earth reveal the heaven it hid All night long from stars and moon, Now the sun sets all in tune? What within you wakes with day Who can say? All too little may we tell, Friends who like each other well, What might haply, if we might, Bid us read our lives aright. II Wild on woodland ways your sires Flashed like fires: Fair as flame and fierce and fleet As with wings on wingless feet Shone and sprang your mother, free, Bright and brave as wind or sea. Free and proud and glad as they, Here to-day Rests or roams their radiant child, Vanquished not, but reconciled, Free from curb of aught above Save the lovely curb of love. Love through dreams of souls divine Fain would shine Round a dawn whose light and song Then should right our mutual wrong — Speak, and seal the love-lit law Sweet Assisi's seer foresaw. Dreams were theirs; yet haply may Dawn a day When such friends and fellows born, Seeing our earth as fair at morn, May for wiser love's sake see More of heaven's deep heart than we.

The leaves talked in the twilight, dear; Hearken the tale they told: How in some far-off place and year, Before the world grew old, I was a dreaming forest tree, You were a wild, sweet bird Who sheltered at the heart of me Because the north wind stirred; How, when the chiding gale was still, When peace fell soft on fear, You stayed one golden hour to fill My dream with singing, dear. To-night the self-same songs are sung The first green forest heard; My heart and the gray world grow young— To shelter you, my bird.

You perished, in a toyland, of surprise; and only I am here to bury you in dessicated tulip tips and eyes of broken diadie-dolls. Poor pink, poor blue! Will you be grown when I’m in Heaven too? Will length of death have turned you Classical like old Bisque faces, keen and sainted view, pearl on your breast, pearl-pointed linen shawl? No, you’ll still have your flowers with no stem, and harp, clear stringed, the blur of La Boheme. You’ll heap upon that Mansion’s mantlepiece impossible plush animal creations, and pout the pillared City’s aberrations. You rest a Classic, but of Wedgewood’s Greece.

The dark is thrown Back from the brightness, like hair Cast over a shoulder. I am alone, Four years older; Like the chairs and the walls Which I once watched brighten With you beside me. I was to waken Never like this, whatever came or was taken. The stalk grows, the year beats on the wind. Apples come, and the month for their fall. The bark spreads, the roots tighten. Though today be the last Or tomorrow all, You will not mind. That I may not remember Does not matter. I shall not be with you again. What we knew, even now Must scatter And be ruined, and blow Like dust in the rain. You have been dead a long season And have less than desire Who were lover with lover; And I have life—that old reason To wait for what comes, To leave what is over.

Like a loose island on the wide expanse, Unconscious floating on the fickle sea, Herself her all, she lives in privacy; Her waking life as lonely as a trance, Doom’d to behold the universal dance, And never hear the music which expounds The solemn step, coy slide, the merry bounds. The vague, mute language of the countenance. In vain for her I smooth my antic rhyme; She cannot hear it. All her little being Concentrated in her solitary seeing— What can she know of beauty or sublime? And yet methinks she looks so calm and good, God must be with her in her solitude!

Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honor bred, with one Who were it proved he lies Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbors' eyes; Bred to a harder thing Than Triumph, turn away And like a laughing string Whereon mad fingers play Amid a place of stone, Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.

On Death's domain intent I fix my eyes, Where human nature in vast ruin lies, With pensive mind I search the drear abode, Where the great conqu'ror has his spoils bestow'd; There there the offspring of six thousand years In endless numbers to my view appears: Whole kingdoms in his gloomy den are thrust, And nations mix with their primeval dust: Insatiate still he gluts the ample tomb; His is the present, his the age to come See here a brother, here a sister spread, And a sweet daughter mingled with the dead. But,Madam, let your grief be laid aside, And let the fountain of your tears be dry'd, In vain they flow to wet the dusty plain, Your sighs are wafted to the skies in vain, Your pains they witness, but they can no more, While Death reigns tyrant o'er this mortal shore. The glowing stars and silver queen of light At last must perish in the gloom of night: Resign thy friends to that Almighty hand, Which gave them life, and bow to his command; Thine Avis give without a murm'ring heart, Though half thy soul be fated to depart. To shining guards consign thine infant care To waft triumphant through the seas of air: Her soul enlarg'd to heav'nly pleasure springs, She feeds on truth and uncreated things. Methinks I hear her in the realms above, And leaning forward with a filial love, Invite you there to share immortal bliss Unknown, untasted in a state like this. With tow'ring hopes, and growing grace arise, And seek beatitude beyond the skies.