Courage

Where are you going with eyes so dull,
You whose eyes were beautiful,
You whose hair with the light was gay,
And now is thin and harsh and gray?
Is it age alone or age and tears
That has slowly rubbed your beauty away?

Where were you going when your swift eyes
Were like merry birds under May skies?--
In your cheeks the colours fluttering brave
As you danced with the wind and ran with the wave.
From what bright star was your brightness caught?
What to your music the music gave?

Now is your beauty a thing of old,
The fire is sunken, the ashes cold.
But if sweet singing on your ear stray,
Or the praise is uttered of yesterday,
Or of courage and nobleness one word said--
Like a cloud Time's ravage is brushed away.

(For Thomas Walsh)



    I


On nights like this the huddled sheep
    Are like white clouds upon the grass,
And merry herdsmen guard their sleep
    And chat and watch the big stars pass.

It is a pleasant thing to lie
    Upon the meadow on the hill
With kindly fellowship near by
    Of sheep and men of gentle will.

I lean upon my broken crook
    And dream of sheep and grass and men --
O shameful eyes that cannot look
    On any honest thing again!

On bloody feet I clambered down
    And fled the wages of my sin,
I am the leavings of the town,
    And meanly serve its meanest inn.

I tramp the courtyard stones in grief,
    While sleep takes man and beast to her.
And every cloud is calling ...

When rival adorers come courting a maid,
There's something or other may often be said,
Why HE should be pitched upon rather than HIM.
This wasn't the case with Old PAUL and Old TIM.

No soul could discover a reason at all
For marrying TIMOTHY rather than PAUL;
Though all could have offered good reasons, on oath,
Against marrying either or marrying both.

They were equally wealthy and equally old,
They were equally timid and equally bold;
They were equally tall as they stood in their shoes
Between them, in fact, there was nothing to choose.

Had I been young EMILY, I should have said,
"You're both much too old for a pretty young maid,
Threescore at the least you are verging upon";
But I wasn't young EMILY. Let us get on.

No coward's blood r...

    'T is pleasant to bear recollections in mind
    Of joys that time hurries away--
    To look back on smiles that have passed like the wind,
    And compare them with frowns of to-day.
    'T was the constant delight of Old Robin, forsooth,
    On the past with clear vision to dwell--
    To recount the fond loves and the raptures of youth,
    And tales of lost pleasures to tell.

    "'T is now many years," like a child, he would say,
    "Since I joined in the sports of the green--
    Since I tied up the flowers for the garland of May,
    And danced with the holiday queen.
    My memory looks backward in sorrowful pride,
    And I think, till my eyes dim with tears,
    Of the past, where my happiness withered and died,
    And the present dull, desol...

The fount the Spaniard sought in vain
Through all the land of flowers
Leaps glittering from the sandy plain
Our classic grove embowers;
Here youth, unchanging, blooms and smiles,
Here dwells eternal spring,
And warm from Hope's elysian isles
The winds their perfume bring.

Here every leaf is in the bud,
Each singing throat in tune,
And bright o'er evening's silver flood
Shines the young crescent moon.
What wonder Age forgets his staff
And lays his glasses down,
And gray-haired grandsires look and laugh
As when their locks were brown!

With ears grown dull and eyes grown dim
They greet the joyous day
That calls them to the fountain's brim
To wash their years away.
What change has clothed the ancient sire
In sudden youth? For, ...

    All I could see from where I stood
    Was three long mountains and a wood;
    I turned and looked another way,
    And saw three islands in a bay.
    So with my eyes I traced the line
    Of the horizon, thin and fine,
    Straight around till I was come
    Back to where I'd started from;
    And all I saw from where I stood
    Was three long mountains and a wood.
    Over these things I could not see;
    These were the things that bounded me;
    And I could touch them with my hand,
    Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
    And all at once things seemed so small
    My breath came short, and scarce at all.
    But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
    Miles and miles above my head;
    So here upon my back I'll lie
    And look my f...

When I am buried, all my thoughts and acts
Will be reduced to lists of dates and facts,
And long before this wandering flesh is rotten
The dates which made me will be all forgotten;
And none will know the gleam there used to be
About the feast days freshly kept by me,
But men will call the golden hour of bliss
'About this time,' or 'shortly after this.'

Men do not heed the rungs by which men climb
Those glittering steps, those milestones upon time,
Those tombstones of dead selves, those hours of birth,
Those moments of the soul in years of earth.
They mark the height achieved, the main result,
The power of freedom in the perished cult,
The power of boredom in the dead man's deeds
Not the bright moments of the sprinkled seeds.

By many waters and on ...

But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,
Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor sing
A pretty dalliance with grief - but try
Some metre like a sky,
Wherein to set
Stars that may linger yet
When I, thy master, shall have come to die.
        Twitter and tweet
            Thy carollings
            Of little things,
        Of fair and sweet;
        For it is meet,
            O robin red!
        That little theme
            Hath little song,
            That little head
        Hath little dream,
            And long.
But we have starry business, such a grief
As Autumn's, dead by some forgotten sheaf,
While all the distance echoes of the wain;
Grief as an ocean's for some sudden isle
Of living green that stayed with it a while,

    The pathos in your face is like a peace,
    It is like resignation or a grace
    Which smiles at the surcease
    Of hope. But there is in your face
    The shadow of pain, and there is a trace
    Of memory of pain.

    I look at you again and again,
    And hide my looks lest your quick eye perceives
    My search for your despair.
    I look at your pale hands, I look at your hair;
    And I watch you use your hands, I watch the flare
    Of thought in your eyes like light that interweaves
    A flutter of color running under leaves,
    Such anguished dreams in your eyes!
    And I listen to you speak
    Words like crystals breaking with a tinkle,
    Or a star's twinkle.
    Sometimes as we talk you rise
    And leave the room, and ...

All day the darkness and the cold
Upon my heart have lain,
Like shadows on the winter sky,
Like frost upon the pane;

But now my torpid fancy wakes,
And, on thy Eagle’s plume,
Rides forth, like Sindbad on his bird,
Or witch upon her broom!

Below me roar the rocking pines,
Before me spreads the lake
Whose long and solemn-sounding waves
Against the sunset break.

I hear the wild Rice-Eater thresh
The grain he has not sown;
I see, with flashing scythe of fire,
The prairie harvest mown!

I hear the far-off voyager’s horn;
I see the Yankee’s trail,
His foot on every mountain-pass,
On every stream his sail.

By forest, lake, and waterfall,
I see his pedler show;
The mighty mingling with the mean,
The lofty...

    Within my veins it beats
    And burns within my brain;
For when the year is sad and sear
    I dream the dream again.

    Ah! over young am I
    God knows! yet in this sleep
More pain and woe than women know
    I know, and doubly deep!...

    Seven towers of shaggy rock
    Rise red to ragged skies,
Built in a marsh that, black and harsh,
    To dead horizons lies.

    Eternal sunset pours,
    Around its warlock towers,
A glowing urn where garnets burn
    With fire-dripping flowers.

    O'er bat-like turrets high,
    Stretched in a scarlet line,
The crimson cranes through rosy rains
    Drop like a ruby wine.

    Once in the banquet-hall
    These scarlet storks are heard:
I sit at board wit...

    I come, like Oblivion, to sweep away
The scattered beams from the car of day:
The gems which the evening has lavishly strown
Light up the lamps round my ebon throne.
Slowly I float through the realms of space,
Casting my mantle o'er Nature's face,
Weaving the stars in my raven hair,
As I sail through the shadowy fields of air.
All the wild fancies that thought can bring
Lie hid in the folds of my sable wing:
Terror is mine with his phrensied crew,
Fear with her cheek of marble hue,
And sorrow, that shuns the eye of day,
Pours out to me her plaintive lay.
I am the type of that awful gloom
Which involves the cradle and wraps the tomb;
Chilling the soul with its mystical sway;
Chasing the day-dreams of beauty away;
Till man views the banner by me un...

Da poi che sotto 'l ciel cosa non vidi.


    When all beneath the ample cope of heaven
I saw, like clouds before the tempest driven,
In sad vicissitude's eternal round,
Awhile I stood in holy horror bound;
And thus at last with self-exploring mind,
Musing, I ask'd, "What basis I could find
To fix my trust?" An inward voice replied,
"Trust to the Almighty: He thy steps shall guide;
He never fails to hear the faithful prayer,
But worldly hope must end in dark despair."
Now, what I am, and what I was, I know;
I see the seasons in procession go
With still increasing speed; while things to come,
Unknown, unthought, amid the growing gloom
Of long futurity, perplex my soul,
While life is posting to its final goal.
Mine is the crime, who ought w...

After the whipping he crawled into bed,
Accepting the harsh fact with no great weeping.
How funny uncle's hat had looked striped red!
He chuckled silently. The moon came, sweeping
A black, frayed rag of tattered cloud before
In scorning; very pure and pale she seemed,
Flooding his bed with radiance. On the floor
Fat motes danced. He sobbed, closed his eyes and dreamed.

Warm sand flowed round him. Blurts of crimson light
Splashed the white grains like blood. Past the cave's mouth
Shone with a large, fierce splendor, wildly bright,
The crooked constellations of the South;
Here the Cross swung; and there, affronting Mars,
The Centaur stormed aside a froth of stars.
Within, great casks, like wattled aldermen,
Sighed of enormous feasts, and cloth of gold
Glow...

When the evening broods quiescent
Over mountain, vale and lea,
And the moon uplifts her crescent
Far above the peaceful sea,
Little Rose, the fisher's daughter,
Passes in her cedar skiff
O'er the dreamy waste of water,
To the signal on the cliff.

Have a care, my merry maiden!
Young Adonis though he be,
Many hearts are secret-laden
That have trusted such as he.
Has he worth, and is he truthful?
Thoughtless maiden rarely knows;
But, "He's handsome, brave and youthful,"
Says the heart of little Rose.

Hark! the horn - its shrill vibrations
Tremble through the maiden's breast,
As the sweet reverberations
Dwindle to their whispered rest;
Sweeter far the honied sentence
Sealing up her mind's repose;
Love as yet needs no repen...

"Which of you, knight or squire, will dare
Plunge into yonder gulf?
A golden beaker I fling in it--there!
The black mouth swallows it like a wolf!
Who brings me the cup again, whoever,
It is his own--he may keep it for ever!"

Tis the king who speaks; and he flings from the brow
Of the cliff, that, rugged and steep,
Hangs out o'er the endless sea below,
The cup in the whirlpool's howling heap:--
"Again I ask, what hero will follow?
What brave heart plunge into yon dark hollow?"

The knights and the squires, the king about,
Hear him, and dumbly stare
Into the wild sea's tumbling rout;
But to win the beaker, they hardly care!
The king, for the third time, round him glaring--
"Not a soul of you has the daring?"

Speechless all, as before,...

Kings must be dauntless; subjects will contemn
Those who want hearts and wear a diadem.

Why was it that the thunder voice of Fate
Should call thee, studious, from the classic groves,
Where calm-eyed Pallas with still footstep roves,
And charge thee seek the turmoil of the state?
What bade thee hear the voice and rise elate,
Leave home and kindred and thy spicy loaves,
To lead th' unlettered and despised droves
To manhood's home and thunder at the gate?

Far better the slow blaze of Learning's light,
The cool and quiet of her dearer fane,
Than this hot terror of a hopeless fight,
This cold endurance of the final pain,--
Since thou and those who with thee died for right
Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!