Farewell, my more than fatherland!
Home of my heart and friends, adieu!
Lingering beside some foreign strand,
How oft shall I remember you!
How often, o’er the waters blue,
Send back a sigh to those I leave,
The loving and beloved few,
Who grieve for me,—for whom I grieve!
We part!—no matter how we part,
There...
Adieu, fair isle! I love thy bowers,
I love thy dark-eyed daughters there;
The cool pomegranate’s scarlet flowers
Look brighter in their jetty hair.
They praised my forehead’s stainless white;
And when I thirsted, gave a draught
From the full clustering cocoa’s height,
And smiling, blessed me as I quaffed.
Well pleased...
gone, gone,—sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air;
Gone, gone,—sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and...
Summer is fading; the broad leaves that grew
So freshly green, when June was young, are falling;
And, all the whisper-haunted forest through,
The restless birds in saddened tones are calling,
From rustling hazel copse and tangled dell,
“Farewell, sweet Summer,
Fragrant, fruity Summer,
Sweet, farewell!”
I put thy hand aside, and turn away:
Why should I blame the slight and fickle heart
That cannot bravely go, nor boldly stay,
Too weak to cling, and yet too fond to part?
Dead Passion chains thee where her ashes lie.
Cold is the shrine, ah, cold for evermore!
Why linger, then, while golden moments fly
And sunshine waits beyond the open...
Good-by: nay, do not grieve that it is over—
The perfect hour;
That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover,
Flits from the flower.
Grieve not,—it is the law. Love will be flying—
Yea, love and all.
Glad was the living; blessed be the dying!
Let the leaves fall.
My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray;
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For every day.
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand,...
Fare thee well! and if forever,
Still forever, fare thee well;
Even though unforgiving, never
’Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.
Would that breast were bared before thee
Where thy head so oft hath lain,
While that placid sleep came o’er thee
Which thou ne’er canst know again:
Would that breast, by thee glanced over,...
Sonnet Lxxxvii.
farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my...
FAREWELL!—but whenever you welcome the hour
That awakens the night-song of mirth in your bower,
Then think of the friend that once welcomed it too,
And forgot his own griefs, to be happy with you.
His griefs may return—not a hope may remain
Of the few that have brightened his pathway of pain—
But he ne’er can forget the short vision that threw...
