Wait a moment
there
on the rim
of the mountain,
you moon at midnight!
If you come out now,
I will be
bereft
of explanations.

These Autumn winds are growing chill,
They wander wailing o'er the hill,
And at the close-shut window cry
That summer opened lovingly;
But we can let them in no more,
And all the eve my heart is sore—
My heart is sore, I know not why.
They seem to say,
The summer day
Has past away,
And life goes with it silently.

Still o'er the mountain's darkening bar
We watch the new-born evening star,
That throbs and quivers in the sea
Of amber light—and musingly
We let our shaping fancy play
With those soft clouds of pearly grey,

'Tis vain, Fonteus!—As the half-tamed steed,
Scenting the desert, lashes madly out,
And strains and storms and struggles to be freed,
Shaking his rattling harness all about—
So, fiercer for restraint, here in my breast
Hot passion rages, firing every thought;
For what is honour, prudence, interest
To the wild strength of love? Oh best of life,
My joy, hope, triumph, glory, my soul's wife,
My Cleopatra! I desire thee so
That all restraint to the wild winds I throw.
Come what come will, come life, come death, to me
'Tis equal, if again I look on thee.

Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn,
Mourn, widowed queen, forgotten Sion, mourn!
Is this thy place, sad City, this thy throne,
Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone?
While suns unblest their angry lustre fling,
And way-worn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?—
Where now thy pomp, which kings with envy viewed?
Where now thy might, which all those kings subdued?
No martial myriads muster in thy gate;
No suppliant nations in thy Temple wait;
No prophet bards, thy glittering courts among,
Wake the full lyre, and swell the tide of song:

What are you, love? A flame from heaven?
A radiant smile are you?
The heaven has not your eyes' bright gleams,
The heaven has not their blue.

The rose has not your snowy breast;
In the moon's face we seek
In vain the rosy flush that dyes
Your soft and blushing cheek.

By night you smile upon the stars,
And on the amorous moon,
By day upon the waves, the flowers—
Why not on one alone?

But, though I pray to you with tears,
With tears and bitter sighs,
You will not deign me yet one glance
Cast by your shining eyes.

Yes, let Art go, if it must be
That with it men must starve—
If Music, Painting, Poetry
Spring from the wasted hearth.

Pluck out the flower, however fair,
Whose beauty cannot bloom
(However sweet it be, or rare)
Save from a noisesome tomb.

These social manners, charm and ease
Are hideous to who knows
The degradation, the disease
From which their beauty flows.

So, Poet, must thy singing be;
O Painter, so thy scene;
Musician, so thy melody,
While misery is queen.

Nay, brothers, sing us battle-songs

I CANNOT see. Gone now is all that brightness
That was the moon between unclouding leaves.
Among wet boughs I wander as one sightless,
A breathing, moving tree
That of the nightly dew his life receives.
Eyes might no sharper beauty bring to me
Than smell, touch, hearing leaf'd with sudden energy.

It is the earth I snuff, the rooted trees
Breathing as I breathe now at every cell:
The earth I hear, sleep-moving in slow, ease
After the long, long day:
The earth I touch, when the brush'd brambles spill
Their dews, and the wet leaves of elder spray,

When , marshall'd on the nightly plain,
The glittering host bestud the sky,
One star alone, of all the train,
Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.

Hark! hark! to God the chorus breaks,
From every host, from every gem;
But one alone the Saviour speaks—
It is the Star of Bethlehem.

Once on the raging seas I rode,
The storm was loud, the night was dark,
The ocean yawn'd, and rudely blow'd
The wind that toss'd my foundering bark.

Deep horror then my vitals froze,
Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem;
When suddenly a star arose—

The wind has thrown
The boldest of trees down.
Now disgraced it lies,
Naked in spring beneath the drifting skies,
Naked and still.

It was the wind
So furious and blind
That scourged half England through,
Ruining the fairest where most fair it grew
By dell and hill,

And springing here,
The black clouds dragging near,
Against this lonely elm
Thrust all his strength to maim and overwhelm
In one wild shock.

As in the deep
Satisfaction of dark sleep
The tree her dream dreamed on,
And woke to feel the wind's arms round her thrown

At Number One dwelt Captain Drew,
George Benson dwelt at Number Two,
(The street we'll not now mention:)
The latter stunn'd the King's Bench bar,
The former, being lamed in war,
Sang small upon a pension.

Tom Blewit knew them both: than he
None deeper in the mystery
Of culinary knowledge;
From turtle soup to Stilton cheese,
Apt student, taking his degrees
In Mrs. Rundell's college.

Benson to dine invited Tom:
Proud of an invitation from
A host who “spread so nicely,
Tom answer'd, ere the ink was dry,
“Extremely happy—come on Fri-