Courage

I am all alone in the house to-night;
    They would not have gone away
Had they known of the terrible, bloodless fight
    I have held with my heart to-day.
With the old sweet love and the old fierce pain
    I have battled hour by hour;
But the fates have willed that the strife is vain.
Alone in the hour my thoughts have reign,
    And I yield myself to their power.

Yield myself to the old time charm
    Of a dream of vanished bliss,
The thrill of a voice, and the fold of an arm,
    And a red lip's lingering kiss.
It all comes back like a flowing tide;
    That brief, but beautiful day.
Though it oft is checked by the dam of pride,
Till the waters flow back to the other side,
    To-night it has broken away.

I gave you all that I had t...

After a Conversation with Lord John Russell, in which he had intimated some Idea of giving up all political Pursuits. 


What! thou, with thy genius, thy youth, and thy name--
    Thou, born of a Russell--whose instinct to run
The accustomed career of thy sires, is the same
    As the eaglet's, to soar with his eyes on the sun!

Whose nobility comes to thee, stampt with a seal,
    Far, far more ennobling than monarch e'er set;
With the blood of thy race, offered up for the weal
    Of a nation that swears by that martyrdom yet!

Shalt thou be faint-hearted and turn from the strife,
    From the mighty arena, where all that is grand
And devoted and pure and adorning in life,
    'Tis for high-thoughted spirits like thine to command?
<...

Wet, cheerless was our bivouac last eve, but still we spoke
Of fighting and of winning, to-morrow, when day broke:
That day the thundering echoes of cannon in our front
Had louder grown until around had raged the battle's brunt
At last the carnage ended, and our regiment's retreat
Was marked by many wounded, who shrieked beneath our feet!
But here in closer order rides past a Lancer Troop--
They had but late been charging like falcons when they swoop.
How few there are remaining! Now the river's bank is gained;
The Trumpeter's white charger with blood on neck is stained.
His snowy flanks are heaving; he shudders on the brink,
Then, gently urged, he halts again, and stoops his head to drink.
He cannot ford the river, for lost are strength and speed:
The Trumpeter, dismounted,...

My own heart let me have more pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.

Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather - as skies
Betweenpie mountains - lights a lovely mile.

Where Humber pours his rich commercial stream
There dwelt a wretch, who breathed but to blaspheme;
In subterraneous caves his life he led,
Black as the mine in which he wrought for bread.
When on a day, emerging from the deep,
A Sabbath-day (such Sabbaths thousands keep!),
The wages of his weekly toil he bore
To buy a cock—whose blood might win him more;
As if the noblest of the feather’d kind
Were but for battle and for death design’d;
As if the consecrated hours were meant
For sport, to minds on cruelty intent;
It chanced (such chances Providence obey)
He met a fellow-labourer on the way,
Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed;
But now the savage temper was reclaim’d,
Persuasion on his lips had taken place;
For all plead well who plead the cause...

While singly thus along the rim we walk'd,
Oft the good master warn'd me: "Look thou well.
Avail it that I caution thee." The sun
Now all the western clime irradiate chang'd
From azure tinct to white; and, as I pass'd,
My passing shadow made the umber'd flame
Burn ruddier. At so strange a sight I mark'd
That many a spirit marvel'd on his way.

This bred occasion first to speak of me,
"He seems," said they, "no insubstantial frame:"
Then to obtain what certainty they might,
Stretch'd towards me, careful not to overpass
The burning pale. "O thou, who followest
The others, haply not more slow than they,
But mov'd by rev'rence, answer me, who burn
In thirst and fire: nor I alone, but these
All for thine answer do more thirst, than doth
Indian or Aethiop ...

Wandering by the river's edge,
I love to rustle through the sedge
And through the woods of reed to tear
Almost as high as bushes are.
Yet, turning quick with shudder chill,
As danger ever does from ill,
Fear's moment ague quakes the blood,
While plop the snake coils in the flood
And, hissing with a forked tongue,
Across the river winds along.
In coat of orange, green, and blue
Now on a willow branch I view,
Grey waving to the sunny gleam,
Kingfishers watch the ripple stream
For little fish that nimble bye
And in the gravel shallows lie.

Eddies run before the boats,
Gurgling where the fisher floats,
Who takes advantage of the gale
And hoists his handkerchief for sail
On osier twigs that form a mast--
While idly lies, nor wanted mo...

I


When I go forth to greet the glad-faced Spring,
Just at the time of opening apple-buds,
When brooks are laughing, winds are whispering,
On babbling hillsides or in warbling woods,
There is an unseen presence that eludes:--
Perhaps a Dryad, in whose tresses cling
The loamy odors of old solitudes,
Who, from her beechen doorway, calls; and leads
My soul to follow; now with dimpling words
Of leaves; and now with syllables of birds;
While here and there--is it her limbs that swing?
Or restless sunlight on the moss and weeds?


II


Or, haply, 't is a Naiad now who slips,
Like some white lily, from her fountain's glass,
While from her dripping hair and breasts and hips,
The moisture rains cool music on the grass.
Her have ...

A desolate shore,
The sinister seduction of the Moon,
The menace of the irreclaimable Sea.

Flaunting, tawdry and grim,
From cloud to cloud along her beat,
Leering her battered and inveterate leer,
She signals where he prowls in the dark alone,
Her horrible old man,
Mumbling old oaths and warming
His villainous old bones with villainous talk -
The secrets of their grisly housekeeping
Since they went out upon the pad
In the first twilight of self-conscious Time:
Growling, hideous and hoarse,
Tales of unnumbered Ships,
Goodly and strong, Companions of the Advance,
In some vile alley of the night
Waylaid and bludgeoned -
Dead.

Deep cellared in primeval ooze,
Ruined, dishonoured, spoiled,
They lie where the lean water-worm
...

How long, deluded Albion, wilt thou lie
In the lethargic sleep, the sad repose
By which thy close thy constant enemy
Has softly lull'd thee to thy woes?
Or wake, degenerate isle, or cease to own
What thy old kings in Gallic camps have done,
The spoils they brought thee back, the crowns they won,
William (so Fate requires) again is arm'd,
Thy father to the field is gone,
Again Maria weeps her absent lord,
For thy repose content to rule alone.
Are thy enervate sons not yet alarm'd?
When William fights dare they look tamely on,
So slow to get their ancient fame restored,
As not to melt at Beauty's tears nor follow Valour's sword?

See the repenting isle awakes,
Her vicious chains the generous goddess breaks;
The fogs around her temples are dispell'd;

Cities and Thrones and Powers
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
The Cities rise again.

This season's Daffodil,
She never hears
What change, what chance, what chill,
Cut down last year's;
But with bold countenance,
And knowledge small,
Esteems her seven days' continuance,
To be perpetual.

So Time that is o'er-kind
To all that be,
Ordains us e'en as blind,
As bold as she:
That in our very death,
And burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
"See how our works endure!"

"With tears thy grief thou dost bemoan,
Tears that would melt the hardest stone,
Oh, wherefore sing'st thou not the vine?
Why chant'st thou not the praise of wine?
It chases pain with cunning art,
The craven slinks from out thy heart."


But I: Poor fools the wine may cheat,
Lull them with lying visions sweet.
Upon the wings of storms may bear
The heavy burden of their care.
The father's heart may harden so,
He feeleth not his own child's woe.


No ocean is the cup, no sea,
To drown my broad, deep misery.
It grows so rank, you cut it all,
The aftermath springs just as tall.
My heart and flesh are worn away,
Mine eyes are darkened from the day.


The lovely morning-red behold
Wave to the breeze her flag of gold.

1.
Moonbeam, leave the shadowy vale,
To bathe this burning brow.
Moonbeam, why art thou so pale,
As thou walkest o'er the dewy dale,
Where humble wild-flowers grow?
Is it to mimic me?
But that can never be;
For thine orb is bright,
And the clouds are light,
That at intervals shadow the star-studded night.

2.
Now all is deathy still on earth;
Nature's tired frame reposes;
And, ere the golden morning's birth
Its radiant hues discloses,
Flies forth its balmy breath.
But mine is the midnight of Death,
And Nature's morn
To my bosom forlorn
Brings but a gloomier night, implants a deadlier thorn.

3.
Wretch! Suppress the glare of madness
Struggling in thine haggard eye,
For the keenest throb of sadness,
Pale Des...

"Under the flag
Of each his faction, they to battle bring
Their embryo atoms."
- Milton.


Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe's weed and Hermes' feather;
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!
I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
Fair and foul I love together.
Meadows sweet where flames are under,
And a giggle at a wonder;
Visage sage at pantomine;
Funeral, and steeple-chime;
Infant playing with a skull;
Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull;
Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;
Cleopatra regal-dress'd
With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;
Muses bright and muses ...

        Down, you mongrel, Death!
            Back into your kennel!
        I have stolen breath
            In a stalk of fennel!
        You shall scratch and you shall whine
            Many a night, and you shall worry
            Many a bone, before you bury
        One sweet bone of mine!

        When shall I be dead?
            When my flesh is withered,
        And above my head
            Yellow pollen gathered
        All the empty afternoon?
            When sweet lovers pause and wonder
            Who am I that lie thereunder,
        Hidden from the moon?

        This my personal death?--
            That lungs be failing
        To inhale the breath
            Others are exhaling?
        This my subtle spirit...

Now must I these three praise,
Three women that have wrought
What joy is in my days;
One that no passing thought,
Nor those unpassing cares,
No, not in these fifteen
Many times troubled years,
Could ever come between
Heart and delighted heart;
And one because her hand
Had strength that could unbind
What none can understand,
What none can have and thrive,
Youth’s dreamy load, till she
So changed me that I live
Labouring in ecstasy.
And what of her that took
All till my youth was gone
With scarce a pitying look?
How could I praise that one?
When day begins to break
I count my good and bad,
Being wakeful for her sake,
Remembering what she had,
What eagle look still shows,
While up from my heart’s root
So great a s...

    "Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
    Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!
    And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,
    I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly
    That I might eat again, and met thy sneers
    With deprecations, and thy blows with tears,--
    Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,
    As if spent passion were a holiday!
    And now I go.    Nor threat, nor easy vow
    Of tardy kindness can avail thee now
    With me, whence fear and faith alike are flown;
    Lonely I came, and I depart alone,
    And know not where nor unto whom I go;
    But that thou canst not follow me I know."

    Thus I to Life, and ceased; but through my brain
    My thought ran still, until I spake again:<...

        Immota manet; multosque nepotes,
    Multa virûm volvens durando sæcula, vincit.    VIRG.

Round thee, alas, no shadows move!
From thee no sacred murmurs breathe!
Yet within thee, thyself a grove,
Once did the eagle scream above,
    And the wolf howl beneath.

There once the steel-clad knight reclin'd,
His sable plumage tempest-toss'd;
And, as the death-bell smote the wind,
From towers long fled by human kind,
    His brow the hero cross'd!

Then Culture came, and days serene,
And village-sports, and garlands gay.
Full many a pathway cross'd the green;
And maids and shepherd-youths were seen,
    To celebrate the May.

Father of many a forest deep,
(Whence many a navy thunder-fraught)
Erst in their acorn-cells asleep...