Since that I may not have
Love on this side the grave,
Let me imagine Love
Since not mine is the bliss
Of “claspt hands and lips that kiss.”
Let me in dreams it prove
What tho' as the years roll
No soul shall melt to my soul,
Let me conceive such thing;
Tho' never shall entwine
Loving arms around mine
Let dreams caresses bring
To live—it is my doom—
Lonely as in a tomb,
This cross on me was laid;
My God, I know not why;
Here in the dark I lie,
Lonely, yet not afraid.
It has seemed good to Thee
Still to withhold the key

Thy life is lonely utterly.
O one I know of emptied days!
A place of wakeful pain for me,
Remote by consecrated ways,—
If I could only die in thee.

We are apart, whose hands clung so.
We might have lived—I mourn with thee.
Sweet life was not for us to know.
We cannot die till death shall be.
Lament thy love, and let me go.

Yet patient rebel that thou art,
All thy quiet life awaits me now,
In a world of thoughts that lies apart.
Are we not thoughts ourselves, sayest thou,
Shall distance keep us heart from heart?

When you were weary, roaming the wide world over,
I gave my fickle heart to a new lover.
Now they tell me that you are lying dead:
O mountains fall on me and hide my head!

When you lay burning in the throes of fever,
He vowed me love by the willow-margined river:
Death smote you there—here was your trust betrayed,
O darkness, cover me, I am afraid!

Yea, in the hour of your supremest trial,
I laughed with him! The shadows on the dial
Stayed not, aghast at my dread ignorance:
Nor man nor angel looked at me askance.
…

Not the light of the long blue Summer,
Nor the flowery huntress, Spring,
Nor the chilly and moaning Winter,
Doth peace to my bosom bring,
Like the hazy and red October,
When the woods stand bare and brown,
And into the lap of the south land,
The flowers are blowing down;
When all night long, in the moonlight,
The boughs of the roof-tree chafe,
And the wind, like a wandering poet,
Is singing a mournful waif;
And all day through the cloud-armies,
The sunbeams like sentinels move—
For then in my path first unfolded

Sea and land are fairer now, nor aught is all the same,
Since a mightier hand than Time's hath woven their votive wreath
Rocks as swords half drawn from out the smooth wave's jewelled sheath,
Fields whose flowers a tongue divine hath numbered name by name,
Shores whereby the midnight or the noon clothed round with flame
Hears the clamour jar and grind which utters from beneath
Cries of hungering waves like beasts fast bound that gnash their teeth,
All of these the sun that lights them lights not like his fame;

Storm, strong with all the bitter heart of hate,
Smote England, now nineteen dark years ago,
As when the tide's full wrath in seaward flow
Smites and bears back the swimmer. Fraud and fate
Were leagued against her: fear was fain to prate
Of honour in dishonour, pride brought low,
And humbleness whence holiness must grow,
And greatness born of shame to be so great.

The winter day that withered hope and pride
Shines now triumphal on the turning tide
That sets once more our trust in freedom free,
That leaves a ruthless and a truthless foe

My walls outside must have some flowers,
—My walls within must have some books;
A house that's small; a garden large,
—And in it leafy nooks:

A little gold that's sure each week;
—That comes not from my living kind,
But from a dead man in his grave,
—Who cannot change his mind:

A lovely wife, and gentle too;
—Contented that no eyes but mine
Can see her many charms, nor voice
—To call her beauty fine:

Where she would in that stone cage live,
—A self-made prisoner, with me;
While many a wild bird sang around,

List! O list, to the sound of the music
Whispering low to the murmuring sea,
List to the thrill of the quivering harp-strings,
List to their ravishing melody.
Gaze on the flushes of crimson and purple,
Watch the red sun as it passes from sight,
See the gay nobles in gliding gondolas,
Bathed in the softness and beauty of night!

Stand to your oars, O ye brave gondoliers,
Silent, that sweetly may fall on our ears
Music like warbles from nightingales' throats,
Or echoes of Orpheus' rapturous notes!

So far, and so far, and on toward the end,
Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of me;
But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity,
Whether I shall dart forth the true rays, the ones that wait unfired,
(Did you think the sun was shining its brightest?
No—it has not yet fully risen;)
Whether I shall complete what is here started,
Whether I shall attain my own height, to justify these, yet unfinished,
Whether I shall make THE POEM OF THE NEW WORLD , transcending all others—depends, rich persons, upon you,

They came from Persia to the Sacred Way
—And rode in Pompey's triumph, side by side
—With odalisques and idols, plumes flung wide.
A flame of gems in the chill Roman day.
They that were brought as captives came to stay,
—To flaunt in beauty, mystery and pride,
—To preen before the emperors deified,
Symbols of their magnificent decay.

Then there was madness and a scourge of swords.
—Imperial purple mouldered into dust.
But the immortal peacocks stung new lords
—To furies of insatiable lust.
Contemptuous, they loitered on parade—