Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by
With flitting butterfly,

Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet,
Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky-high,
Nor sigh that spring is fleet and summer fleet,
Nor mark the waxing wheat,

Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.

Life is not good. One day it will be good
To die, then live again;

To sleep meanwhile; so, not to feel the wane
Of shrunk leaves dropping in the wood,
Nor hear the foamy lashing of the main,

Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor, where stood
Rich ranks of golden grain,

Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain:
Asleep from risk, asleep from pain.

THE LOWEST PLACE.

[The Prince's Progress etc. 1866. 25 July 1863.]

GIVE me the lowest place; not that I dare
Ask for that lowest place, but Thou hast died

That I might live and share

Thy glory by Thy side.

Give me the lowest place: or if for me

That lowest place too high, make one more low

Where I may sit and see

My God and love Thee so.

SOMEWHERE OR OTHER.

[The Prince's Progress etc. 1866. Towards November 1863.]

SOMEWHERE or other there must surely be
The face not seen, the voice not heard,

The heart that not yet-never yet-ah me! Made answer to my word.

Somewhere or other, may be near or far; Past land and sea, clean out of sight; Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star That tracks her night by night.

Somewhere or other, may be far or near; With just a wall, a hedge, between; With just the last leaves of the dying year Fallen on a turf grown green.

IF I HAD WORDS.

[New Poems 1896.3 September 1864.]

IF I had words, if I had words
At least to vent my misery:-
But muter than the speechless herds
I have no voice wherewith to cry.
I have no strength to lift my hands,
I have no heart to lift mine eye,
My soul is bound with brazen bands,
My soul is crushed and like to die.
My thoughts that wander here and there,
That wander wander listlessly,
Bring nothing back to cheer my care,
Nothing that I may live thereby.

My heart is broken in my breast,
My breath is but a broken sigh-

Oh if there be a land of rest

It is far off, it is not nigh.
If I had wings as hath a dove,
If I had wings that I might fly,

I

yet would seek the land of love

Where fountains run which run not dry:

Though there be none that road to tell,

And long that road is verily:
Then if I lived I should do well,

And if I died I should but die.
If I had wings as hath a dove,

I would not sift the what and why,
I would make haste to find out Love,
If not to find at least to try.

I would make haste to Love, my rest-
To Love, my truth that doth not lie:
Then if I lived it might be best,

Or if I died I could but die.

WEARY IN WELL-DOING.

[The Prince's Progress etc. 1866. 22 October 1864.]

I WOULD have gone; God bade me stay:
I would have worked; God bade me rest.
He broke my will from day to day;
He read my yearnings unexprest,
And said them nay.

Now I would stay; God bids me go:
Now I would rest; God bids me work.
He breaks my heart tost to and fro;
My soul is wrung with doubts that lurk
And vex it so.

I go, Lord, where Thou sendest me;
Day after day I plod and moil:
But, Christ my God, when will it be
That I may let alone my toil
And rest with Thee?

SHALL I FORGET?

[The Prince's Progress etc. 1866.

21 February 1865.]

SHALL I forget on this side of the grave?
I promise nothing: you must wait and see,
Patient and brave.

(O my soul, watch with him, and he with me.)

Shall I forget in peace of Paradise?

I promise nothing: follow, friend, and see,
Faithful and wise.

(O my soul, lead the way he walks with me.)

DEAD HOPE.

[Macmillan's Magazine 1868. - 15 March 1865.]

HOPE newborn one pleasant morn

Died at even:

Hope dead lives nevermore,

No not in heaven.

If his shroud were but a cloud

To weep itself away

Or were he buried underground

To sprout some day!

But dead and gone is dead and gone,

Vainly wept upon.

Nought we place above his face

To mark the spot,

But it shows a barren place

In our lot.

Hope has birth no more on earth

Morn or even;

Hope dead lives nevermore,

No not in heaven.

LIFE flows down to death; we cannot bind
That current that it should not flee:
Life flows down to death, as rivers find
The inevitable sea.

2.

Wherefore art thou strange, and not my mother?
Thou hast stolen my heart and broken it:
Would that I might call thy sons 'My brother,'
Call thy daughters 'Sister sweet':

Lying in thy lap, not in another,
Dying at thy feet.

Farewell, land of love, Italy,

Sister-land of Paradise:

With mine own feet I have trodden thee,
Have seen with mine own eyes:

I remember, thou forgettest me,
I remember thee.

Blessed be the land that warms my heart,
And the kindly clime that cheers,
And the cordial faces clear from art,
And the tongue sweet in mine ears:
Take my heart, its truest tenderest part,
Dear land, take my tears.

3.

Men work and think, but women feel;
And so (for I'm a woman, I)
And so I should be glad to die,
Jiriczek, Englische Dichter.

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