That year? Yes, doubtless I remember still,—
Though why take count of every wind that blows!
’T was plain, men said, that Fortune used me ill
That year,—the self-same year I met with Rose.
Crops failed; wealth took a flight; house, treasure, land,
Slipped from my hold—thus plenty comes and goes.
One friend I had, but he too loosed his...
mute, sightless visitant,
From what uncharted world
Hast voyaged into Life’s rude sea,
With guidance scant;
As if some bark mysteriously
Should hither glide, with spars aslant
And sails all furled!
In what perpetual dawn,
Child of the spotless brow,
Hast kept thy spirit far withdrawn—...
Oh, what a set of Vagabundos,
Sons of Neptune, sons of Mars,
Raked from todos otros mundos,
Lascars, Gascons, Portsmouth tars,
Prison mate and dock-yard fellow,
Blades to Meg and Molly dear,
Off to capture Porto Bello
Sailed with Morgan the Buccaneer!
Out they voyaged from Port Royal
(Fathoms deep its ruins be,...
That sovereign thought obscured? That vision clear
Dimmed in the shadow of the sable wing,
And fainter grown the fine interpreting
Which as an oracle was ours to hear!
Nay, but the Gods reclaim not from the seer
Their gift,—although he ceases here to sing,
And, like the antique sage, a covering
Draws round his head, knowing what...
When the veil from the eyes is lifted
The seer’s head is gray;
When the sailor to shore has drifted
The sirens are far away.
Why must the clearer vision,
The wisdom of Life’s late hour,
Come, as in Fate’s derision,
When the hand has lost its power?
Is there a rarer being,
Is there a fairer sphere
Where...
Give me to die unwitting of the day,
And stricken in Life’s brave heat, with senses clear:
Not swathed and couched until the lines appear
Of Death’s wan mask upon this withering clay,
But as that old man eloquent made way
From Earth, a nation’s conclave hushed anear;
Or as the chief whose fates, that he may hear
The victory, one glorious...
where broods the Absolute,
Or shuns our long pursuit
By fiery utmost pathways out of ken?
Fleeter than sunbeams, lo,
Our passionate spirits go,
And traverse immemorial space, and then
Look off, and look in vain, to find
The master-clew to all they left behind.
White orbs like angels pass
Before...
Thou,—whose endearing hand once laid in sooth
Upon thy follower, no want thenceforth,
Nor toil, nor joy and pain, nor waste of years
Filled with all cares that deaden and subdue,
Can make thee less to him—can make thee less
Than sovereign queen, his first liege, and his last
Remembered to the unconscious dying hour,—
Return and be thou...
I
wild is its nature, as it were a token,
Born of the sunshine, and the stars, and sea;
Grand as a passion felt but never spoken,
Lonely and proud and free.
For when the Maker set its crown of beauty,
And for its home ordained the torrid ring,
Assigning unto each its place and duty,
He made the Palm a King.
I send thee a shell from the ocean beach;
But listen thou well, for my shell hath speech.
Hold to thine ear,
And plain thou’lt hear
Tales of ships
That were lost in the rips,
Or that sunk on shoals
Where the bell-buoy tolls,
And ever and ever its iron tongue rolls
In a ceaseless lament...
