A Wintertide we had been wed
When Jan went off to sea;
And now the laurel rose is red
And I wait on the quay.
His berthing boat I watch with dread,
For where, oh where is he?
II
"Weep not, brave lass," the Skipper said;
"Return to you he will;
In hospital he lies abed
In Rio in Brazil;
But though I know he is not dead,
I do not know his ill."
III
The Seaman's Hospital I wrote,
And soon there came reply.
The nurse's very words I quote:
"Your husband will not die;
But you must wait a weary boat -

There seemed a smell of autumn in the air
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, ‘To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why,
Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in
Under the freedom of that morning sky!’
And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din.

Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell
Of underground, or God’s blank heart grown kind,

Elisabeth imagines I've
A yellow streak
She deems I have no dash and drive,
Jest dogoned weak.
'A man should be a man,' says Liz
'Trade blow for blow.'
Poor kid! What my position is
She jest don't know.
II
She jest don't know my old man killed,
Yea, slew and slew.
As steamy blood he sweetly spilled,
So could I too.
And though no wrath of heart I show
When I see red,
I fear no S. O. B. but oh
Myself I dread.
III

Bouquet said: “My floral ring
The homage of a heart encloses,
Whose thoughts to you go worshipping
In perfume from my blushing roses.”

Bracelet said: “My rubies red,
Though hard the gleam that each exposes,
Will last when flowers of Spring are fled
And dead are all the Summer roses.”

Beauty mused awhile, and said,
“Here’s poesy!” and sighed, “Here prose is
Bouquet! I choose the rubies red!—
In Winter they will buy me roses.”

GOD of this Planet! for the name best fits
The purblind view, which men of this "dim spot"
Can take of THEE, the GOD Of Suns and Spheres!
What desert forests, and what barren plains,
Lie unexplor'd by European eye,
In what our Fathers call'd the Great South Land!
Ev'n in those tracts, which we have visited,
Tho' thousands of thy vegetable works
Have, by the hand of Science (as 'tis call'd)
Been gather'd and dissected, press'd and dried,
Till all their blood and beauty are extinct;
And nam'd in barb'rous Latin, men's surnames,

(Time, Morning. Scene, the Shore.)

Once more to daily toil--once more to wear
The weeds of infamy--from every joy
The heart can feel excluded, I arise
Worn out and faint with unremitting woe;
And once again with wearied steps I trace
The hollow-sounding shore. The swelling waves
Gleam to the morning sun, and dazzle o'er
With many a splendid hue the breezy strand.
Oh there was once a time when ELINOR
Gazed on thy opening beam with joyous eye
Undimm'd by guilt and grief! when her full soul
Felt thy mild radiance, and the rising day

Oh! Bury me in books when I am dead,
Fair quarto leaves of ivory and gold,
And silk octavos, bound in brown and red,
That tales of love and chivalry unfold.
Heap me in volumes of fine vellum wrought,
Creamed with the close content of silent speech;
Wrap me in sapphire tapestries of thought
From some old epic out of common reach.
I would my shroud were verse-embroidered too---
Your verse for preference—in starry stitch,
And powdered o’er with rhymes that poets woo,
Breathing dream-lyrics in moon-measures rich.

'Twas such a manner of disease, 'twas such
Mortal miasma in Cecropian lands
Whilom reduced the plains to dead men's bones,
Unpeopled the highways, drained of citizens
The Athenian town. For coming from afar,
Rising in lands of Aegypt, traversing
Reaches of air and floating fields of foam,
At last on all Pandion's folk it swooped;
Whereat by troops unto disease and death
Were they o'er-given. At first, they'd bear about
A skull on fire with heat, and eyeballs twain
Red with suffusion of blank glare. Their throats,

But mortal man
Was then far hardier in the old champaign,
As well he should be, since a hardier earth
Had him begotten; builded too was he
Of bigger and more solid bones within,
And knit with stalwart sinews through the flesh,
Nor easily seized by either heat or cold,
Or alien food or any ail or irk.
And whilst so many lustrums of the sun
Rolled on across the sky, men led a life
After the roving habit of wild beasts.
Not then were sturdy guiders of curved ploughs,
And none knew then to work the fields with iron,

Can it be! of stars the star,

Do I press thee to my heart?
In the night of distance far,

What deep gulf, what bitter smart!
Yes, 'tis thou, indeed, at last,

Of my joys the partner dear!
Mindful, though, of sorrows past,

I the present needs must fear.

When the still-unfashion'd earth

Lay on God's eternal breast,
He ordain'd its hour of birth,

With creative joy possess'd.
Then a heavy sigh arose,

When He spake the sentence:--"Be!"
And the All, with mighty throes,

Burst into reality.