Courage

I

Who was it held that Love was soothing or sweet?
Mine is a painful fire, at its whitest heat.

Who said that Beauty was ever a gentle joy?
Thine is a sword that flashes but to destroy.

Though mine eyes rose up from thy Beauty's banquet, calm and refreshed,
My lips, that were granted naught, can find no rest.

My soul was linked with thine, through speech and silent hours,
As the sound of two soft flutes combined, or the scent of sister flowers.

But the body, that wretched slave of the Sultan, Mind,
Who follows his master ever, but far behind,

Nothing was granted him, and every rebellious cell
Rises up with angry protest, "It is not well!

Night is falling; thou hast departed; I am alone;
And the Last Sweetness of Love thou hast n...

View of the Lake of Geneva from the Jura.[1]--Anxious to reach it before the Sun went down.--Obliged to proceed on Foot.--Alps.--Mont Blanc.--Effect of the Scene.


'Twas late--the sun had almost shone
His last and best when I ran on
Anxious to reach that splendid view
Before the daybeams quite withdrew
And feeling as all feel on first
    Approaching scenes where, they are told,
Such glories on their eyes will burst
    As youthful bards in dreams behold.

'Twas distant yet and as I ran
    Full often was my wistful gaze
Turned to the sun who now began
    To call in all his out-posts rays,
And form a denser march of light,
Such as beseems a hero's flight.
Oh, how I wisht for JOSHUA'S power,
To stay the brightness of that hour...

    A little grey curl from my father's head
    I find unburned on the hearth,
    And give it a place in my diary here,
    With a feeling half sadness, half mirth.
    For the long white locks are our special pride,
    Though he smiles at his daughter's praise;
    But, oh, they have grown each year more thin,
    Till they are now but a silvery haze.

    That wise old head! (though it does grow bald
    With the knocks hard fortune may give)
    Has a store of faith and hope and trust,
    Which have taught him how to live.
    Though the hat be old, there's a face below
    Which telleth to those who look
    The history of a good man's life,
    And it cheers like a blessed book.

    [A]A peddler of jewels, of clocks, and of books,
    ...

'Mid crowded obelisks and urns
I sought the untimely grave of Burns;
Sons of the Bard, my heart still mourns
With sorrow true;
And more would grieve, but that it turns
Trembling to you!

Through twilight shades of good and ill
Ye now are panting up life's hill,
And more than common strength and skill
Must ye display;
If ye would give the better will
Its lawful sway.

Hath Nature strung your nerves to bear
Intemperance with less harm, beware!
But if the Poet's wit ye share,
Like him can speed
The social hour, of tenfold care
There will be need;

For honest men delight will take
To spare your failings for his sake,
Will flatter you, and fool and rake
Your steps pursue;
And of your Father's name will make
A snare ...

Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Sweet of scent;
Sat and dreamed away an hour,
Half content, half uncontent.

"Why should rose blossoms be born,
Tender blossoms, on a thorn
Though so sweet?
Never a thorn besets the corn
Scentless in its strength complete.

"Why are roses all so frail,
At the mercy of the gale,
Of a breath?
Yet so sweet and perfect pale,
Still so sweet in life and death."

Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Where a linnet
Made one bristling branch the tower
For her nest and young ones in it.

"Gay and clear the linnet trills;
Yet the skylark only, thrills
Heaven and earth
When he breasts the height, and fills
Height and depth ...

Never did sculptor's dream unfold
A form which marble doth not hold
In its white block; yet it therein shall find
Only the hand secure and bold
Which still obeys the mind.
So hide in thee, thou heavenly dame,
The ill I shun, the good I claim;
I alas! not well alive,
Miss the aim whereto I strive.
Not love, nor beauty's pride,
Nor Fortune, nor thy coldness, can I chide,
If, whilst within thy heart abide
Both death and pity, my unequal skill
Fails of the life, but draws the death and ill.

'Tis morning now, yet silently I stand,
Uplift the curtain with a weary hand,
Look out while darkness overspreads the way,
        And long for day.

Calm peace is frighted with my mood to-night,
Nor visits my dull chamber with her light,
To guide my senses into her sweet rest
        And leave me blest.

Long hours since the city rocked and sung
Itself to slumber: only the stars swung
Aloft their torches in the midnight skies
        With watchful eyes.

No sound awakes; I, even, breathe no sigh,
Nor hear a single footstep passing by;
Yet I am not alone, for now I feel
        A presence steal

Within my chamber walls; I turn to see
The sweetest guest that courts humanity;
With subtle, slow enchantment draws she near,
      ...

I.

Come with me where April twilights
Wigwam blue the April hills;
Where the shadows and the high lights
Swarm the woods that Springtime fills.
Tents where dwell the tribes of beauty,
Tasseled scouts whose camp-fires glow
Over leagues of wild-flower booty
Rescued from the camps of snow.

II.

A thousand windflowers blowing!
They print the ways with palest pearl,
As if with raiment flowing
Here passed some glimmering girl.
A thousand bluets breaking!
They take the heart with glad surprise,
As if some wild girl waking
Looked at you with bewildered eyes.
A thousand buds and flowers,
A thousand birds and bees:
What spirit haunts the bowers!
What dream that no one sees!

III.

Her kirtle is white as the w...

This is a wild land, country of my choice,
    With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare.
Seldom in these acres is heard any voice
    But voice of cold water that runs here and there
    Through rocks and lank heather growing without care.
No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry
For fear of the dark speck that floats in the sky.

He soars and he hovers rocking on his wings,
    He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye,
He catches the trembling of small hidden things,
    He tears them in pieces, dropping from the sky:
    Tenderness and pity the land will deny,
Where life is but nourished from water and rock
A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock.

Time has never journeyed to this lost land,
    Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date,

Cards, and swords, and a lady's love,
That is a tale worth reading,
An insult veiled, a downcast glove,
And rapiers leap unheeding.
        And 'tis O! for the brawl,
        The thrust, the fall,
And the foe at your feet a-bleeding.

Tales of revel at wayside inns,
The goblets gaily filling,
Braggarts boasting a thousand sins,
Though none can boast a shilling.
        And 'tis O! for the wine,
        The frothing stein,
And the clamour of cups a-spilling.

Tales of maidens in rich brocade,
Powder and puff and patches,
Gallants lilting a serenade
Of old-time trolls and catches.
        And 'tis O! for the lips
        And the finger tips,
And the kiss that the boldest snatches.

Tales of buckle and big rosette,
The...

I must leave thee, lady sweet
Months shall waste before we meet;
Winds are fair and sails are spread,
Anchors leave their ocean bed;
Ere this shining day grow dark,
Skies shall gird my shoreless bark.
Through thy tears, O lady mine,
Read thy lover's parting line.

When the first sad sun shall set,
Thou shalt tear thy locks of jet;
When the morning star shall rise,
Thou shalt wake with weeping eyes;
When the second sun goes down,
Thou more tranquil shalt be grown,
Taught too well that wild despair
Dims thine eyes and spoils thy hair.

All the first unquiet week
Thou shalt wear a smileless cheek;
In the first month's second half
Thou shalt once attempt to laugh;
Then in Pickwick thou shalt dip,
Slightly puckering round the lip,...

    Memory as embankment,
    a mudslide at High Tide
    with shades up...
    my avocado green brethren
    pleasures the soil.

    Memory as enchantment
    a Belle at a Soiree,
    pureed, Gaston at a Dinner Party.

    Napanee suggests sympathy,
    a serendipity...
    as water winders its way
    to clay in a moonlight
    turn of the bottle,
    I shall find a way.
    that's ironclad.

And so, to you, who always were
Perseus, D'Artagnan, Lancelot
To me, I give these weedy rhymes
In memory of earlier times.
Now all those careless days are not.
Of all my heroes, you endure.

Words are such silly things! too rough,
Too smooth, they boil up or congeal,
And neither of us likes emotion --
But I can't measure my devotion!
And you know how I really feel --
And we're together.    There, enough,...!

1. Daylong I brooded upon the Passion of Israel.

2. I saw him bound to the wheel, nailed to the cross, cut off by the sword, burned at the stake, tossed into the seas.

3. And always the patient, resolute, martyr face arose in silent rebuke and defiance.

4. A Prophet with four eyes; wide gazed the orbs of the spirit above the sleeping eyelids of the senses.

5. A Poet, who plucked from his bosom the quivering heart and fashioned it into a lyre.

6. A placid-browed Sage, uplifted from earth in celestial meditation.

7. These I saw, with princes and people in their train; the monumental dead and the standard-bearers of the future.

8. And suddenly I heard a burst of mocking laughter, and turning, I beheld the shuffling gait, the ignominious features, the sordid mask of ...

I

How blest the Maid whose heart, yet free
From Love's uneasy sovereignty
Beats with a fancy running high,
Her simple cares to magnify;
Whom Labour, never urged to toil,
Hath cherished on a healthful soil;
Who knows not pomp, who heeds not pelf;
Whose heaviest sin it is to look
Askance upon her pretty Self
Reflected in some crystal brook;
Whom grief hath spared, who sheds no tear
But in sweet pity; and can hear
Another's praise from envy clear.

II

Such (but O lavish Nature! why
That dark unfathomable eye,
Where lurks a Spirit that replies
To stillest mood of softest skies,
Yet hints at peace to be o'erthrown,
Another's first, and then her own?)
Such, haply, yon Italian Maid,
Our Lady's laggard Votaress,
Halt...

Dear Sir of late delighted with the sight
Of your four Sisters cloth'd in black and white,
Of fairer Dames the Sun ne'r saw the face;
Though made a pedestal for Adams Race;
Their worth so shines in those rich lines you show
Their paralels to finde I scarely know
To climbe their Climes, I have nor strength nor skill
To mount so high requires an Eagle's quill;
Yet view thereof did cause my thoughts to soar,
My lowly pen might wait upon those four
I bring my four times four, now meanly clad
To do their homage, unto yours, full glad:
Who for their Age, their worth and quality
Might seem of yours to claim precedency:
But by my humble hand, thus rudely pen'd
They are your bounden handmaids to attend

These same are they, from whom we being have
These are o...

Death and Famine on every side
    And never a sign of rain,
The bones of those who have starved and died
    Unburied upon the plain.
What care have I that the bones bleach white?
    To-morrow they may be mine,
But I shall sleep in your arms to-night
    And drink your lips like wine!

Cholera, Riot, and Sudden Death,
    And the brave red blood set free,
The glazing eye and the failing breath, -
    But what are these things to me?
Your breath is quick and your eyes are bright
    And your blood is red like wine,
And I shall sleep in your arms to-night
    And hold your lips with mine!

I hear the sound of a thousand tears,
    Like softly pattering rain,
I see the fever, folly, and fears
    Fulfilling man's tale of pain.
But ...

You and I and Burd so blithe--
    Burd so blithe, and you, and I--
The Mower he would whet his scythe
    Before the dew was dry.

And he woke soon, but we woke soon
    And drew the nursery blind,
All wondering at the waning moon
    With the small June roses twined:
Low in her cradle swung the moon
    With an elfin dawn behind.

In whispers, while our elders slept,
    We knelt and said our prayers,
And dress'd us and on tiptoe crept
    Adown the creaking stairs.

The world's possessors lay abed,
    And all the world was ours--
"Nay, nay, but hark! the Mower's tread!
    And we must save the flowers!"

The Mower knew not rest nor haste--
    That old unweary man:
But we were young. We paused and raced
    And ...