Age: 124
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North Wind in October
IN the golden glade the chestnuts are fallen all; From the sered boughs of the oak the acorns fall: The beech scatters her ruddy fire; The lime hath stripped to the cold, And standeth naked above her yellow attire: The larch thinneth her spire To lay the ways of the wood with cloth of gold.
Out of the golden-green and white Of the brake the fir-trees stand upright In the forest of flame, and wave aloft To the blue of heaven their blue-green tuftings soft.
But swiftly in shuddering gloom the splendours fail, As the harrying North-wind beareth A cloud of skirmishing hail The grieved woodland to smite: In a hurricane through the trees he teareth, Raking the boughs and the leaves rending, And whistleth to the descending Blows of his icy flail. Gold and snow he mixeth in spite, And whirleth afar; as away on his winnowing flight He passeth, and all again for ahile is bright.
Age: 124
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"I Have Loved Flowers That Fade"
I have loved flowers that fade, Within whose magic tents Rich hues have marriage made With sweet unmemoried scents: A honeymoon delight-- A joy of love at sight, That ages in an hour-- My song be like a flower!
I have loved airs that die Before their charm is writ Along a liquid sky Trembling to welcome it. Notes, that with pulse of fire Proclaim the spirit's desire, Then die, and are nowhere-- My song be like an air!
Die, song, die like a breath, And wither as a bloom; Fear not a flowery death, Dread not an airy tomb! Fly with delight, fly hence! 'Twas thine love's tender sense To feast; now on thy bier Beauty shall shed a tear.
Age: 124
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"For Beauty Being the Best of All We Know"
FOR beauty being the best of all we know Sums up the unsearchable and secret aims Of nature, and on joys whose earthly names Were never told can form and sense bestow; And man has sped his instinct to outgo The step of science; and against her shames Imagination stakes out heavenly claims, Building a tower above the head of woe. Nor is there fairer work for beauty found Than that she win in nature her release From all the woes that in the world abound; Nay with his sorrow may his love increase, If from man's greater need beauty redound, And claim his tears for homage of his peace
Age: 124
6854 days old here
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A Passer-By
WHITHER, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West, That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding, Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest? Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest, When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling, Wilt thou glide on the blue Pacific, or rest Ina summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.
I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest, Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air: I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest, And anchor queen of the strange shipping there, Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare; Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capped, grandest Peak, that is over the feathery palms more fair Than thou, so upright, so stately, and still thou standest.
And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless, I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless, Thy port assured in a happier land than mine. But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine, As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding, From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.
Age: 124
6854 days old here
Total Posts: 18948
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London Snow
WHEN men were all asleep the snow came flying, In large white flakes falling on the city brown, Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town; Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing; Lazily and incessantly floating down and down: Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing; Hiding difference, making unevenness even, Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing. All night it fell, and when full inches seven It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness, The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven; And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare: The eye marvelled--marvelled at the dazzling whiteness; The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air; No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling, And the busy morning cries came thin and spare. Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling, They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing; Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees; Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder, "O look at the trees!" they cried, "O look at the trees!" With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder, Following along the white deserted way, A country company long dispersed asunder: When now already the sun, in pale display Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day. For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow; And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go: But even for them awhile no cares encumber Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.
Age: 124
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Low Barometer
THE south-wind strengthens to a gale, Across the moon the clouds fly fast, The house is smitten as with a flail, The chimney shudders to the blast.
On such a night, when air has loosed Its guardian grasp on blood and brain, Old terrors then of god or ghost Creep from their caves to life again.
And reason kens he herits in A haunted house. Tenants unknown Assert their squalid lease of sin With earlier title than his own.
Unbodied presences, the packed Pollution and remorse of Time, Slipped from oblivion reenact The horrors of unhouseld crime.
Some men would quell the thing with prayer Whose sightless footsteps pad the floor, Whose fearful trespass mounts the stair Or bursts the locked forbidden door.
Some have seen corpses long interred Escape from hallowing control, Pale charnel forms--nay ev'n have heard The shrilling of a troubled soul,
That wanders till the dawn hath crossed The dolorous dark, or Earth hath wound Closer her storm-spread cloke, and thrust The baleful phantoms underground.
Age: 124
6854 days old here
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Nightingales
BEAUTIFUL must be the mountains whence ye come, And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams wherefrom Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air Bloom the year long!
Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams, A throe of the heart, Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound, No dying cadence, nor long sigh can sound, For all our art.
Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then, As night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, Dream, while the innumerable choir of day Welcome the dawn.
Age: 124
6854 days old here
Total Posts: 18948
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My Delight and Thy Delight
MY delight and thy delight Walking, like two angels white, In the gardens of the night:
My desire and thy desire Twinning to a tongue of fire, Leaping live, and laughing higher; Thro' the everlasting strife In the mystery of life.
Love, from whom the world begun, Hath the secret of the sun.
Love can tell and love alone, Whence the million stars are strewn, Why each atom knows its own, How, in spite of woe and death, Gay is life, and sweet is breath:
This he taught us, this we knew, Happy in his science true, Hand in hand as we stood 'Neath the shadows of the wood, Heart to heart as we lay In the dawning of the day.