En.Citatepedia^®.ro

Sir Walter Scott

DEAD!—it was like a thunderbolt
To hear that he was dead;
Though for long weeks the words of fear
Came from his dying bed;
Yet hope denied, and would deny—
We did not think that he could die.

The poet has a glorious hold
Upon the human heart,
Yet glory is from sympathy
A light alone—apart;
But there was something in thy name,
Which touched us with a dearer claim

The earnest feeling borne to thee
Was like a household tie,
A sunshine on our common life,
And from our daily sky.
Thy works are those familiar things
From which so much of memory springs.

We talked of them beside the hearth,
Till every story blends
With some remembered intercourse
Of near and dearest friends,
Friends that in early youth were ours.
Connected with life's happiest hours.

How well I can recall the time
When first I turned thy page,
The green boughs closed above my head
A natural hermitage;
And sang a little brook along,
As if it heard and caught thy song.

I peopled all the walks and shades
With images of thine;
The lime-tree was a lady's bower,
The yew-tree was a shrine:
Almost I deemed each sunbeam shone
O'er banner, spear, and morion.

Now, not one single trace is left
Of that sequestered nook;
The very course is turned aside
Of that melodious brook:
Not so the memories can depart,
Then garner'd in my inmost heart.
The past was his—his generous song
Went back to other days,
With filial feeling, which still sees
Something to love and praise,
And closer drew the ties which bind
Man with his country and his kind.

It rang throughout his native land,
A bold and stirring song,
As the merle's hymn at matin sweet,
And as the trumpet strong:
A touch there was of each degree,
Half minstrel and half knight was he.

How many a lonely mountain glade
Lives in his verse anew,
Linked with associate sympathy,
The tender and the true;
For nature has fresh beauty brought,
When animate with life from thought.

'Tis not the valley nor the hill,
Tho' beautiful they be,
That can suffice the heart, till touched
As they were touched by thee;
Thou who didst glorify the whole,
By pouring forth the poet's soul.

Who now could stand upon the banks
Of thine own 'silver Tweed?'
Nor deem they heard thy 'warrior's horn,'
Or heard thy 'shepherd's reed?'
Immutable as Nature's claim,
The ground is hallowed by thy name.

I cannot bear to see the shelf
Where ranged thy volumes stand,
And think that mute is now thy lip,
And cold is now thy hand;
That, hadst thou been more common clay,
So soon thou hadst not passed sway,

For thou didst die before thy time,
The tenement o'erwrought,
The heart consumed by its desire,
The body worn by thought;
Thyself the victim of thy shrine,
A glorious sacrifice was thine.

Alas, it is too soon for this—
The future for thy fame;
But now we mourn as if we mourned
A father's cherished claim.
Ah! time may bid the laurel wave—
We can but weep above thy grave.

poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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To The Painted Columbine

Bright image of the early years
When glowed my cheek as red as thou,
And life's dark throng of cares and fears
Were swift-winged shadows o'er my sunny brow!

Thou blushest from the painter's page,
Robed in the mimic tints of art;
But Nature's hand in youth's green age
With fairer hues first traced thee on my heart.

The morning's blush, she made it thine,
The morn's sweet breath, she gave it thee,
And in thy look, my Columbine!
Each fond-remembered spot she bade me see.

I see the hill's far-gazing head,
Where gay thou noddest in the gale;
I hear light-bounding footsteps tread
The grassy path that winds along the vale.

I hear the voice of woodland song
Break from each bush and well-known tree,
And on light pinions borne along,
Comes back the laugh from childhood's heart of glee.

O'er the dark rock the dashing brook,
With look of anger, leaps again,
And, hastening to each flowery nook,
Its distant voice is heard far down the glen.

Fair child of art! thy charms decay,
Touched by the withered hand of Time;
And hushed the music of that day,
When my voice mingled with the streamlet's chime;

But on my heart thy cheek of bloom
Shall live when Nature's smile has fled;
And, rich with memory's sweet perfume,
Shall o'er her grave thy tribute incense shed.

There shalt thou live and wake the glee
That echoed on thy native hill;
And when, loved flower! I think of thee,
My infant feet will seem to seek thee still.

poem by Jones Very
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Tribute To The Memory Of The Same Dog

LIE here, without a record of thy worth,
Beneath a covering of the common earth!
It is not from unwillingness to praise,
Or want of love, that here no Stone we raise;
More thou deserv'st; but 'this' man gives to man,
Brother to brother, 'this' is all we can.
Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear
Shall find thee through all changes of the year:
This Oak points out thy grave; the silent tree
Will gladly stand a monument of thee.
We grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past;
And willingly have laid thee here at last:
For thou hadst lived till everything that cheers
In thee had yielded to the weight of years;
Extreme old age had wasted thee away,
And left thee but a glimmering of the day;
Thy ears were deaf, and feeble were thy knees,--
I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze,
Too weak to stand against its sportive breath,
And ready for the gentlest stroke of death.
It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed;
Both man and woman wept when thou wert dead;
Not only for a thousand thoughts that were,
Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy share;
But for some precious boons vouchsafed to thee,
Found scarcely anywhere in like degree!
For love, that comes wherever life and sense
Are given by God, in thee was most intense;
A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind,
A tender sympathy, which did thee bind
Not only to us Men, but to thy Kind:
Yea, for thy fellow-brutes in thee we saw
A soul of love, love's intellectual law:--
Hence, if we wept, it was not done in shame;
Our tears from passion and from reason came,
And, therefore, shalt thou be an honoured name!

poem by William Wordsworth
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To Isa in Heaven

Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven! — Young.

Where is she now?
Oh! Isa! tell me where thou art?
If death has laid his hand upon thy brow,
Has he not touched my heart?
Has he not laid it in the grave with thine,
And buried all my joys?—Speak! thou art mine!

If thou were dead,
I would not ask thee to reply;
But thou art living—thy dear soul has fled
To heaven, where it can never die!
Then why not come to me? Return—return
And comfort me, for I have much to mourn!

I sigh all day!
I mourn for thee the livelong night!
And when the next night comes, thou art away,
And so is absent my delight!
Oh! as the lone dove for his absent mate,
So is my soul for thee disconsolate!

I long for death—
For any thing—to be with thee!
I did inhale, alas! thy dying breath,
That it might have some power on me
To make me what thou art!—but, thou art dead!
And I am here!—it strengthened me instead!

Joy there is none—
It went into the grave with thee!
And grief, because my spirit is alone,
Is all that comes to comfort me!
The very air I breathe is turned to sighs,
And all mine soul is melting from mine eyes!

I hear, at even,
The liquid carol of birds;
Their music makes me think of thee in heaven,
It is so much like thy sweet words.
The brooklet whispers, as it runs along,
Our first love-story with its liquid tongue.

Wake, Isa! wake!
And come back in this world again!
Oh! come down to me, for my soul's dear sake,
And cure me of this trying pain!
I would give all that earth to man can be,
If thou wert only in this world with me!

Day after day
I seek thee, but thou art not near!
I sit down on thy grave in the cold clay,
And listen for thy soul!—oh! dear!
And when some withered leaf falls from the tree,
I start as if thy soul had spoke to me!

And so it is,
And so it ever more must ever be
To him, who has been robbed of all the bliss
He ever knew, by loving thee!
For misery, in thine absence, is my wife!
What joy had been, hadst thou remained in life!

It is now even;
The birds have sung themselves to sleep;
And all the stars seem coming out of heaven,
As if to look upon me weep!—
Oh! let me not look up to thee in vain,
But come back to me in this world again!

poem by Thomas Holley Chivers (1842)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Υμνος αυμνος

O Thou whose image in the shrine
Of human spirits dwells divine;
Which from that precinct once conveyed,
To be to outer day displayed,
Doth vanish, part, and leave behind
Mere blank and void of empty mind,
Which wilful fancy seeks in vain
With casual shapes to fill again!
O Thou that in our bosom’s shrine
Dost dwell, unknown because divine!
I thought to speak, I thought to say,
‘The light is here,’ ‘behold the way,’
‘The voice was thus,’ and ‘thus the word,’
And ‘thus I saw,’ and ‘that I heard,’—
But from the lips that half essayed
The imperfect utterance fell unmade.

O Thou, in that mysterious shrine
Enthroned, as I must say, divine!
I will not frame one thought of what
Thou mayest either be or not.
I will not prate of ‘thus’ and ‘so,’
And be profane with ‘yes’ and ‘no,’
Enough that in our soul and heart
Thou, whatso’er Thou may’st be, art.

Unseen, secure in that high shrine
Acknowledged present and divine,
I will not ask some upper air,
Some future day to place Thee there;
Nor say, nor yet deny, such men
And women saw Thee thus and then:
Thy name was such, and there or here
To him or her Thou didst appear.

Do only Thou in that dim shrine,
Unknown or known, remain, divine;
There, or if not, at least in eyes
That scan the fact that round them lies,
The hand to sway, the judgment guide,
In sight and sense Thyself divide:
Be Thou but there,—in soul and heart,
I will not ask to feel Thou art.

poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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We Met as Strangers

We met as strangers on life's lonely way,
And yet it seemed we knew each other well;
There was no end to what thou hadst to say,
Or to the thousand things I found to tell.
My heart, long silent, at thy voice that day
Chimed in my breast like to a silver bell.

How much we spoke, and yet still left untold
Some secret half revealed within our eyes:
Didst thou not love me once in ages old?
Had I not called thee with importunate cries,
And, like a child left sobbing in the cold,
Listened to catch from far thy fond replies?

We met as strangers, and as such we part;
Yet all my life seems leaving me with thine;
Ah, to be clasped once only heart to heart,
If only once to feel that thou wert mine!
These lips are locked, and yet I know thou art
That all in all for which my soul did pine.

poem by Mathilde Blind
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The Chamois Hunter's Love

Thy heart is in the upper world, where fleet the chamois bounds;
Thy heart is where the mountain-fir shakes to the torrent-sounds;
And where the snow-peaks gleam like stars, through the stillness of the air,
And where the Lauwine's peal is heart - Hunter! thy heart is there!

I know thou lovest me well, dear friend! but better, better far,
Thou lovest that high and haughty life, with rocks and storms at war;
In the green sunny vales with me, thy spirit would but pine,
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!

And I will not seek to woo thee down from those thy native heights,
With the sweet song, our land's own song, of pastoral delights;
For thou must live as eagles live, thy path is not as mine,
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!

And I will leave my blessed home, my father's joyous hearth,
With all the voices meeting there in tenderness and mirth,
With all the kind and laughing eyes that in its firelight shine,
To sit forsaken in thy hut, yet know that thou art mine!

It is my youth, it is my bloom, it is my glad free heart,
That I cast away for thee - for thee, all reckless as thou art!
With tremblings and with vigils lone, I bind myself to dwell,
Yet, yet I would not change that lot, oh no! I love too well!

A mournful thing is love which grows to one so wild as thou,
With that bright restlessness of eye, that tameless fire of brow.
Mournful! - but dearer far I call its mingled fear and pride,
And the trouble of its happiness, than aught on earth beside.

To listen for thy step in vain, to start at every breath,
To watch through long long nights of storm, to sleep and dream of death,
To wake in doubt and loneliness - this doom I know is mine
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!

That I may greet thee from thine Alps, when thence thou comest at last,
That I may hear thy thrilling voice tell o'er each danger past,
That I may kneel and pray for thee, and win thee aid divine -
For this I will be thine, my love! for this I will be thine!

poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Our Lady's Well

Fount of the woods! thou art hid no more,
From Heaven's clear eye, as in time of yore!
For the roof hath sunk from thy mossy walls,
And the sun's free glance on thy slumber falls;
And the dim tree-shadows across thee pass,
As the boughs are sway'd o'er thy silvery glass;
And the reddening leaves to thy breast are blown,
When the autumn wind hath a stormy tone;
And thy bubbles rise to the flashing rain-
Bright Fount! thou art nature's own again!

Fount of the vale! thou art sought no more
By the pilgrim's foot, as in time of yore,
When he came from afar, his beads to tell,
And to chant his hymn at Our Lady's Well.
There is heard no Ave through thy bowers,
Thou art gleaming lone 'midst thy water-flowers!
But the herd may drink from thy gushing wave,
And there may the reaper his forehead lave,
And the woodman seeks thee not in vain-
-Bright Fount! thou art nature's own again!

Fount of the Virgin's ruin'd shrine!
A voice that speaks of the past is thine!
It mingles the tone of a thoughtful sigh,
With the notes that ring through the laughing sky;
'Midst the mirthful song of the summer-bird,
And the sound of the breeze, it will yet be heard!
-Why is it that thus we may gaze on thee,
To the brilliant sunshine sparkling free?
-'Tis that all on earth is of Time's domain-
He hath made thee nature's own again!

Fount of the chapel with ages grey!
Thou art springing freshly amidst decay!
Thy rites are closed, and thy cross lies low,
And the changeful hours breathe o'er thee now!
Yet if at thine altar one holy thought
In man's deep spirit of old hath wrought;
If peace to the mourner hath here been given,
Or prayer, from a chasten'd heart, to Heaven,
Be the spot still hallow'd while Time shall reign,
Who hath made thee nature's own again!

poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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After Looking into Carlyles Reminiscences

I.

THREE MEN lived yet when this dead man was young
Whose names and words endure for ever one:
Whose eyes grew dim with straining toward the sun,
And his wings weakened, and his angel’s tongue
Lost half the sweetest song was ever sung,
But like the strain half uttered earth hears none,
Nor shall man hear till all men’s songs are done:
One whose clear spirit like an eagle hung
Between the mountains hallowed by his love
And the sky stainless as his soul above:
And one the sweetest heart that ever spake
The brightest words wherein sweet wisdom smiled.
These deathless names by this dead snake denied
Bid memory spit upon him for their sake.

II.

Sweet heart, forgive me for thine own sweet sake,
Whose kind blithe soul such seas of sorrow swam,
And for my love’s sake, powerless as I am
For love to praise thee, or like thee to make
Music of mirth where hearts less pure would break,
Less pure than thine, our life-unspotted Lamb.
Things hatefullest thou hadst not heart to damn,
Nor wouldst have set thine heel on this dead snake.
Let worms consume its memory with its tongue,
The fang that stabbed fair Truth, the lip that stung
Men’s memories uncorroded with its breath.
Forgive me, that with bitter words like his
I mix the gentlest English name that is,
The tenderest held of all that know not death.

poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Armand Barbes

Fire out of heaven, a flower of perfect fire,
That where the roots of life are had its root
And where the fruits of time are brought forth fruit;
A faith made flesh, a visible desire,
That heard the yet unbreathing years respire
And speech break forth of centuries that sit mute
Beyond all feebler footprint of pursuit;
That touched the highest of hope, and went up higher;
A heart love-wounded whereto love was law,
A soul reproachless without fear or flaw,
A shining spirit without shadow of shame,
A memory made of all men's love and awe;
Being disembodied, so thou be the same,
What need, O soul, to sign thee with thy name?

All woes of all men sat upon thy soul
And all their wrongs were heavy on thy head;
With all their wounds thy heart was pierced and bled,
And in thy spirit as in a mourning scroll
The world's huge sorrows were inscribed by roll,
All theirs on earth who serve and faint for bread,
All banished men's, all theirs in prison dead,
Thy love had heart and sword-hand for the whole.
"This was my day of glory," didst thou say,
When, by the scaffold thou hadst hope to climb
For thy faith's sake, they brought thee respite; "Nay,
I shall not die then, I have missed my day."
O hero, O our help, O head sublime,
Thy day shall be commensurate with time.

poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Return Of Youth

My friend, thou sorrowest for thy golden prime,
For thy fair youthful years too swift of flight;
Thou musest, with wet eyes, upon the time
Of cheerful hopes that filled the world with light,--
Years when thy heart was bold, thy hand was strong,
And quick the thought that moved thy tongue to speak,
And willing faith was thine, and scorn of wrong
Summoned the sudden crimson to thy cheek.

Thou lookest forward on the coming days,
Shuddering to feel their shadow o'er thee creep;
A path, thick-set with changes and decays,
Slopes downward to the place of common sleep;
And they who walked with thee in life's first stage,
Leave one by one thy side, and, waiting near,
Thou seest the sad companions of thy age--
Dull love of rest, and weariness and fear.

Yet grieve thou not, nor think thy youth is gone,
Nor deem that glorious season e'er could die.
Thy pleasant youth, a little while withdrawn,
Waits on the horizon of a brighter sky;
Waits, like the morn, that folds her wing and hides,
Till the slow stars bring back her dawning hour;
Waits, like the vanished spring, that slumbering bides
Her own sweet time to waken bud and flower.

There shall he welcome thee, when thou shalt stand
On his bright morning hills, with smiles more sweet
Than when at first he took thee by the hand,
Through the fair earth to lead thy tender feet.
He shall bring back, but brighter, broader still,
Life's early glory to thine eyes again,
Shall clothe thy spirit with new strength, and fill
Thy leaping heart with warmer love than then.

Hast thou not glimpses, in the twilight here,
Of mountains where immortal morn prevails?
Comes there not, through the silence, to thine ear
A gentle rustling of the morning gales;
A murmur, wafted from that glorious shore,
Of streams that water banks for ever fair,
And voices of the loved ones gone before,
More musical in that celestial air?

poem by William Cullen Bryant
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The Grief Of Love

Love, I am sick for thee, sick with an absolute grief,
Sick with the thought of thy eyes and lips and bosom.
All the beauty I saw, I see to my hurt revealed.
All that I felt I feel to--day for my pain and sorrow.

Love, I would fain forget thee, hide thee in deeper night,
Shut thee where no thought is, in the grave with tears.
Love, I would turn my face to the wall and, if needs be, die;
Death less cruel were than thy eyes which have blinded me.

Since thou art gone from me, glory is gone from my life;
Dumb are the woods and streams, and dumb the voice of my soul;
Dead are the flowers we loved, blackened and sere with blight;
Earth is frost--bound under my foot where our footsteps trod.

Give me back for my sorrow the days of senseless peace,
Days when I thought not of thee, or thought in wisdom;
Let me see thee once more as thou to my folly wert,
A woman senseless as sounding brass or as tinkling cymbal.

Why didst thou show me thy heart, which I thought not of?
Why didst thou bare me thy soul, who to me wert soulless?
Why didst thou kiss my mouth, when my mouth did mock?
Why didst thou speak to my lips of love, ere my lips had spoken?

Love, thou hast made me thine, thine, and in my despite,
Laying thy hand on my heart in the soft Spring weather;
Love, thou hast bought my soul at a price, the price of thine,
Never again to mock at love, ah, never, never!

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Go Where Glory Waits Thee

Go where glory waits thee,
But while fame elates thee,
Oh! still remember me.
When the praise thou meetest
To thine ear is sweetest,
Oh! then remember me.
Other arms may press thee,
Dearer friends caress thee,
All the joys that bless thee,
Sweeter far may be;
But when friends are nearest,
And when joys are dearest,
Oh! then remember me!

When, at eve, thou rovest
By the star thou lovest,
Oh! then remember me.
Think, when home returning,
Bright we've seen it burning,
Oh! thus remember me.
Oft as summer closes,
When thine eye reposes
On its lingering roses,
Once so loved by thee,
Think of her who wove them,
Her who made thee love them,
Oh! then remember me.

When, around thee dying,
Autumn leaves are lying,
Oh! then remember me.
And, at night, when gazing
On the gay hearth blazing,
Oh! still remember me.
Then should music, stealing
All the soul of feeling,
To thy heart appealing,
Draw one tear from thee;
Then let memory bring thee
Strains I used to sing thee, --
Oh! then remember me.

poem by Thomas Moore
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O sweet song of sorrow play thy song in me

O sweet song of sorrow play thy song in me
Lonely, alone with thee, in perfect harmony
Sorrow don't ever leave me; I need thy loyalty
Without thy sweet song, I am nothing, with no sympathy
Without thy empathy, breathing in me, sorrow thou art beauty
The beauty in me, so weep thy soul in me
And in thy sweet cry, my soul shall flow free
To thine heart, to thine love, to thine eternal glory
Sorrow, sweet sorrow, thou play thy song in me
Me as sorrowful, as thy soul's sorrow be…

poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Lady That Hast my Heart

LADY that hast my heart within thy hand,
Thou heed'st me not; and if thou turn thine ear
Unto the wise, thou shalt not understand--
Behold the fault is thine, our words were clear.
For all the tumult in my drunken brain
Praise God! who trieth not His slave in vain;
Nor this world nor the next shall make me fear!

My weary heart eternal silence keeps--
I know not who has slipped into my heart;
Though I am silent, one within me weeps.
My soul shall rend the painted veil apart.
Where art thou, Minstrel! touch thy saddest strings
Till clothed in music such as sorrow sings,
My mournful story from thy zither sweeps.

Lo, not at any time I lent mine ear
To hearken to the glories of the earth;
Only thy beauty to mine eyes was dear.
Sleep has forsaken me, and from the birth
Of night till day I weave bright dreams of thee;
Drunk with a hundred nights of revelry,
Where is the tavern that sets forth such cheer!

My heart, sad hermit, stains the cloister floor
With drops of blood, the sweat of anguish dire;
Ah, wash me clean, and o'er my body pour
Love's generous wine! the worshippers of fire
Have bowed them down and magnified my name,
For in my heart there burns a living flame,
Transpiercing Death's impenetrable door.

What instrument through last night's silence rang?
My life into his lay the minstrel wove,
And filled my brain with the sweet song he sang.
It was the proclamation of thy love
That shook the strings of Life's most secret lyre,
And still my breast heaves with last night's desire,
For countless echoes from that music sprang.

And ever, since the time that Hafiz heard
His Lady's voice, as from a rocky hill
Reverberates the softly spoken word,
So echoes of desire his bosom fill.

poem by Shams al-Din Hafiz
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The Broken Pitcher

Accursed be the hour of that sad day
The careless potter put his hand to thee,
And dared to fashion out of common clay
So pure a shape as thou didst seem to me.

An idle boy, when vintage was begun,
I passed and saw thy beauty for my sin,
And poured unheedingly till it was done
The red wine of my love's first gathering in.

And thou, ah! thou didst look at me and smile
To see me give with such ungrudging hand,
As taking all to thy dear heart, the while
It only fell upon the thirsty sand.

Sad pitcher, thou wast broken at the well,
Ere yet the shepherd's lip had tasted thine.
A god had lost in thee his hydromel,
As I have wasted my poor wealth of wine.

Yet, wherefore wast thou made so fair a thing?
Or why of clay, whose fabric rightly were
Of finest gold, new--fashioned for a king,
And framed by some divine artificer?

I will not curse thee, thou poor shape of clay,
That thou art other than thou seemed to be,
Yet I will break thee, that no passer may
Unthinking break another heart on thee.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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To Mary

If I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;
But I forgot, when by thy side,
That thou couldst mortal be:
It never through my mind had past
The time would e'er be o'er,
And I on thee should look my last,
And thou shouldst smile no more!

And still upon that face I look,
And think 'twill smile again;
And still the thought I will not brook,
That I must look in vain.
But when I speak—thou dost not say
What thou ne'er left'st unsaid;
And now I feel, as well I may,
Sweet Mary, thou art dead!

If thou wouldst stay, e'en as thou art,
All cold and all serene—
I still might press thy silent heart,
And where thy smiles have been.
While e'en thy chill, bleak corse I have,
Thou seemest still mine own;
But there—I lay thee in thy grave,
And I am now alone!

I do not think, where'er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;
And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart
In thinking too of thee:
Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne'er seen before,
As fancy never could have drawn,
And never can restore!

poem by Charles Wolfe
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Geist's Grave

Four years!—and didst thou stay above
The ground, which hides thee now, but four?
And all that life, and all that love,
Were crowded, Geist! into no more?

Only four years those winning ways,
Which make me for thy presence yearn,
Call’d us to pet thee or to praise,
Dear little friend! at every turn?

That loving heart, that patient soul,
Had they indeed no longer span, 10
To run their course, and reach their goal,
And read their homily to man?

That liquid, melancholy eye,
From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs
Seem’d urging the Virgilian cry, 1
The sense of tears in mortal things—

That steadfast, mournful strain, consol’d
By spirits gloriously gay,
And temper of heroic mould—
What, was four years their whole short day?

Yes, only four!—and not the course
Of all the centuries yet to come,
And not the infinite resource
Of Nature, with her countless sum

Of figures, with her fulness vast
Of new creation evermore,
Can ever quite repeat the past,
Or just thy little self restore.

Stern law of every mortal lot!
Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear,
And builds himself I know not what
Of second life I know not where.

But thou, when struck thine hour to go,
On us, who stood despondent by,
A meek last glance of love didst throw,
And humbly lay thee down to die.

Yet would we keep thee in our heart—
Would fix our favorite on the scene,
Nor let thee utterly depart
And be as if thou ne’er hadst been.

And so there rise these lines of verse
On lips that rarely form them now;
While to each other we rehearse:
Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou!

We stroke thy broad brown paws again,
We bid thee to thy vacant chair,
We greet thee by the window-pane,
We hear thy scuffle on the stair.

We see the flaps of thy large ears
Quick rais’d to ask which way we go;
Crossing the frozen lake, appears
Thy small black figure on the snow!

Nor to us only art thou dear
Who mourn thee in thine English home;
Thou hast thine absent master’s tear,
Dropp’d by the far Australian foam.

Thy memory lasts both here and there,
And thou shalt live as long as we.
And after that—thou dost not care!
In us was all the world to thee.

Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame,
Even to a date beyond our own
We strive to carry down thy name,
By mounded turf, and graven stone.

We lay thee, close within our reach,
Here, where the grass is smooth and warm,
Between the holly and the beech,
Where oft we watch’d thy couchant form,

Asleep, yet lending half an ear
To travellers on the Portsmouth road;—
There build we thee, O guardian dear,
Mark’d with a stone, thy last abode!

Then some, who through this garden pass,
When we too, like thyself, are clay,
Shall see thy grave upon the grass,
And stop before the stone, and say:

People who lived here long ago
Did by this stone, it seems, intend
To name for future times to know
The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend.

poem by Matthew Arnold (1881)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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John Woolman

Meek, humble, sinless as a very child,
Such wert thou,—and, though unbeheld, I seem
Oft-times to gaze upon thy features mild,
Thy grave, yet gentle lip, and the soft beam
Of that kind eye, that knew not how to shed
A glance of aught save love, on any human head.

Servant of Jesus! Christian! not alone
In name and creed, with practice differing wide,
Thou didst not in thy conduct fear to own
His self-denying precepts for thy guide.
Stern only to thyself, all others felt
Thy strong rebuke was love, not meant to crush, but melt.

Thou, who didst pour o'er all the human kind
The gushing fervour of thy sympathy!
E'en the unreasoning brute, fail'd not to find
A pleader for his happiness in thee.
Thy heart was moved for every breathing thing,
By careless man exposed to needless suffering.

But most the wrongs and sufferings of the slave,
Stirr'd the deep fountain of thy pitying heart;
And still thy hand was stretch'd to aid and save,
Until it seem'd that thou hadst taken a part
In their existence, and couldst hold no more
A separate life from them, as thou hadst done before.

How the sweet pathos of thy eloquence,
Beautiful in its simplicity, went forth
Entreating for them! that this vile offence,
So unbeseeming of our country's worth,
Might be removed before the threatening cloud,
Thou saw'st o'erhanging it, should burst in storm and blood.

So may thy name be reverenced,—thou wert one
Of those whose virtues link us to our kind,
By our best sympathies; thy day is done,
But its twilight lingers still behind,
In thy pure memory; and we bless thee yet,
For the example fair thou hast before us set.

poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Picture Of Sappho

I.

THOU! whose impassion'd face
The Painter loves to trace,
Theme of the Sculptor's art and Poet's story--
How many a wand'ring thought
Thy loveliness hath brought,
Warming the heart with its imagined glory!
II.

Yet, was it History's truth,
That tale of wasted youth,
Of endless grief, and Love forsaken pining?
What wert thou, thou whose woe
The old traditions show
With Fame's cold light around thee vainly shining?
III.

Didst thou indeed sit there
In languid lone despair--
Thy harp neglected by thee idly lying--
Thy soft and earnest gaze
Watching the lingering rays
In the far west, where summer-day was dying--
IV.

While with low rustling wings,
Among the quivering strings
The murmuring breeze faint melody was making,
As though it wooed thy hand
To strike with new command,
Or mourn'd with thee because thy heart was breaking?
V.

Didst thou, as day by day
Roll'd heavily away,
And left thee anxious, nerveless, and dejected,
Wandering thro' bowers beloved--
Roving where he had roved--
Yearn for his presence, as for one expected?
VI.

Didst thou, with fond wild eyes
Fix'd on the starry skies,
Wait feverishly for each new day to waken--
Trusting some glorious morn
Might witness his return,
Unwilling to believe thyself forsaken?
VII.

And when conviction came,
Chilling that heart of flame,
Didst thou, O saddest of earth's grieving daughters !
From the Leucadian steep
Dash, with a desperate leap,
And hide thyself within the whelming waters?
VIII.

Yea, in their hollow breast
Thy heart at length found rest!
The ever-moving waves above thee closing--
The winds, whose ruffling sigh
Swept the blue waters by,
Disturb'd thee not!--thou wert in peace reposing!
IX.

Such is the tale they tell!
Vain was thy beauty's spell--
Vain all the praise thy song could still inspire--
Though many a happy band
Rung with less skilful hand
The borrowed love-notes of thy echoing lyre.
X.

FAME, to thy breaking heart
No comfort could impart,
In vain thy brow the laurel wreath was wearing;
One grief and one alone
Could bow thy bright head down--
Thou wert a WOMAN, and wert left despairing!

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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Requiem

To what bright world afar didst thou belong,
Thou whose pure soul seemed not of mortal birth?
From what fair clime of flowers and love and song,
Cam'st thou, a star beam to our shadowed earth?
What hadst thou done, sweet spirit in that sphere,
That thou wert banished here?

Here, where our blossoms early fade and die,
Where autumn frosts despoil our loveliest bowers,
Where song goes up to heaven an anguished cry
From wounded hearts, like perfume from crushed flowers;
Where Love despairing waits and weeps in vain,
His Psyche to regain.

Thou cam'st not unattended on thy way; --
Spirits of grace and beauty, joy and love,
Were with thee ever, bearing each some ray
From the far home that thou hadst left above;
And ever at thy side, upon our sight
Gleamed forth their wings of light.

We heard their voices in the gushing song
That rose like incense from thy poet heart;
We saw the footsteps of the shining throng
Glancing upon thy pathway, high apart,
Where in thy radiance thou didst walk the earth,
Thou child of glorious birth.

But the way lengthened and the song grew sad,
Breathing those tones that find no echo here;
Aspiring, soaring, but no longer glad,
Its mournful music fell upon the ear:
'Twas the home-sickness of a soul that sighs
For its own native skies.

Then he that to earth's children comes at last,
The angel-messenger, white-robed and pale,
Upon thy soul his sweet oblivion cast,
And bore thee gently through the shadowy vale,
The fleeting years of thy brief exile o'er,
Home to the blissful shore.

poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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