I (My Soul), I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul.
The franklin he hath gone to roam,
The franklin's maid she bides at home;
But she is cold, and coy, and staid,
And who may win the franklin's maid?
There came a knight of high renown In bassinet and ciclatoun;
On bended knee full long he prayed -
He might not win the franklin's maid.
There came a squire so debonair,
His dress was rich, his words were fair.
He sweetly sang, he deftly played -
He could not win the franklin's maid.
There came a mercer wonder-fine,
With velvet cap and gaberdine;
For all his ships, for all his trade,
He could not buy the franklin's maid.
There came an archer bold and true,
With bracer guard and stave of yew;
His purse was light, his jerkin frayed -
Haro, alas! The franklin's maid!
Oh, some have laughed and some have cried,
And some have scoured the countryside;
But off they ride through wood and glade,
The bowman and the franklin's maid.
Silent is the House-all are laid asleep;
One, alone, looks out o'er the snow wreaths deep;
Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze
That whirls the 'wildering drifts and bends the groaning trees.
Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor;
Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door;
The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far;
I trim it well to be the Wanderer's guiding-star.
Frown, my haughty sire; chide, my angry dame;
Set your slaves to spy, threaten me with shame:
But neither sire nor dame, nor prying serf shall know
What angel nightly tracks that waste of winter snow.
What I love shall come like visitant of air,
Safe in secret power from lurking human snare;
Who loves me, no word of mine shall e'er betray,
Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay.
Burn, then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear
Hush! A rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air:
He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me;
Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy.
But he sleeps on the top of his mast
with his eyes closed tight.
The gull inquired into his dream,
which was, "I must not fall.
The spangled sea below wants me to fall.
It is hard as diamonds; it wants to destroy us all.
She has seen the mystery hid
Under Egypt's pyramid:
By those eyelids pale and close
Now she knows what Rhamses knows.
But since he had
The genius to be loved, why let him have
The justice to be honoured in his grave.
"I grant you ample leave
To use the hoary formula" I am "
Naming the emptiness where thought is not;
But fill the void with definition," I "
Will be no more a datum than the words
You link false inference with, the 'Sincč & 'sņ
That, true or not, make up the atom-whirl.
Resolve your" Ego ", it is all one web
With vibrant ether clotted into worlds:
Your subject, self, or self-assertive" I "
Turns nought but object, melts to molecules,
Is stripped from naked Being with the rest
Of those rag-garments named the Universe.
Or if, in strife to keep your" Ego "strong
You make it weaver of the etherial light,
Space, motion, solids & the dream of Time - -
Why, still 'tis Being looking from the dark,
The core, the centre of your consciousness,
That notes your bubble-world: sense, pleasure, pain,
What are they but a shifting otherness,
Phantasmal flux of moments?"
Love is more thicker than forget
... it is more sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky.
O bird, that used to press,
Thy head against my cheek
With touch that seem'd to speak,
And ask a tender "yes" -
Ay de mi, my bird:
Ay de mi, my bird, my bird -
Ay de mi, my bird.
O tender downy breast,
And warmly beating heart,
That beating seem'd a part
Of me who gave it rest -
Ay de mi, my bird:
Ay de mi, my bird, my bird -
Ay de mi, my bird.
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!
Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.