Courage

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;
Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes!
No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,
Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head.
But when the fields are still,
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
And only the white sheep are sometimes seen
Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch'd green.
Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest!
Here, where the reaper was at work of late
In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use
Here will I sit and wait,
While to my ear from uplands far away
The bleating of the folded f...

"Never fear!" said The Brass to the Clay
Of two Jars that the flood bore away:
"Keep you close to my side!"
But the porcelain replied,
"I'll be smashed if beside you I stay."

Our Friend Our Enemy

Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path, how soft to pace!
This May, what magic weather!
Where is the loved one's face?
In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
I and...

I.

My life is full of weary days,
But good things have not kept aloof,
Nor wander’d into other ways:
I have not lack’d thy mild reproof,
Nor golden largess of thy praise.

And now shake hands across the brink
Of that deep grave to which I go:
Shake hands once more: I cannot sink
So far–far down, but I shall know
Thy voice, and answer from below.


II.

When in the darkness over me
The four-handed mole shall scrape,
Plant thou no dusky cypress-tree,
Nor wreathe thy cap with doleful crape,
But pledge me in the flowing grape.

And when the sappy field and wood
Grow green beneath the showery gray,
And rugged barks begin to bud,
And thro’ damp holts new-flush’d with may,
Ring sudden scritches of the jay,
...

    I'm scared of it all, God's truth! so I am;
    It's too big and brutal for me.
    My nerve's on the raw and I don't give a damn
    For all the "hoorah" that I see.
    I'm pinned between subway and overhead train,
    Where automobillies swoop down:
    Oh, I want to go back to the timber again -
    I'm scared of the terrible town.

    I want to go back to my lean, ashen plains;
    My rivers that flash into foam;
    My ultimate valleys where solitude reigns;
    My trail from Fort Churchill to Nome.
    My forests packed full of mysterious gloom,
    My ice-fields agrind and aglare:
    The city is deadfalled with danger and doom -
    I know that I'm safer up there.

    I watch the wan faces that flash in the street;
    All kinds a...

What can I do to drive away
Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen,
Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen!
Touch has a memory. O say, love, say,
What can I do to kill it and be free
In my old liberty?
When every fair one that I saw was fair
Enough to catch me in but half a snare,
Not keep me there:
When, howe'er poor or particolour'd things,
My muse had wings,
And ever ready was to take her course
Whither I bent her force,
Unintellectual, yet divine to me;
Divine, I say! What sea-bird o'er the sea
Is a philosopher the while he goes
Winging along where the great water throes?

How shall I do
To get anew
Those moulted feathers, and so mount once more
Above, above
The reach of fluttering Love,
And make him cower lowly while...

Home, thou return’st from Thames, whose naiads long
Have seen thee ling’ring with a fond delay
’Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day,
Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.
Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth
Whom, long endear’d, thou leav’st by Lavant’s side;
Together let us wish him lasting truth,
And joy untainted, with his destin’d bride.
Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast
My short-liv’d bliss, forget my social name;
But think far off how, on the southern coast,
I met thy friendship with an equal flame!
Fresh to that soil thou turn’st, whose ev’ry vale
Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand:
To thee thy copious subjects ne’er shall fail;
Thou need’st but take the pencil to thy hand,
And paint what all believe who ...

At the chill high tide of the night,
At the turn of the fluctuant hours,
When the waters of time are at height,
In a vision arose on my sight
The kingdoms of earth and the powers.

In a dream without lightening of eyes
I saw them, children of earth,
Nations and races arise,
Each one after his wise,
Signed with the sign of his birth.

Sound was none of their feet,
Light was none of their faces;
In their lips breath was not, or heat,
But a subtle murmur and sweet
As of water in wan waste places.

Pale as from passionate years,
Years unassuaged of desire,
Sang they soft in mine ears,
Crowned with jewels of tears,
Girt with girdles of fire.

A slow song beaten and broken,
As it were from the dust and the dead,
As o...

A TALE OF TRANSFORMATIONS.


A little Brook, that babbled under grass,
Once saw a Poet pass--
A Poet with long hair and saddened eyes,
Who went his weary way with woeful sighs.
And on another time,
This Brook did hear that Poet read his rueful rhyme.
Now in the poem that he read,
This Poet said--
"Oh! little Brook that babblest under grass!
(Ah me! Alack! Ah, well-a-day! Alas!)
Say, are you what you seem?
Or is your life, like other lives, a dream?
What time your babbling mocks my mortal moods,
Fair Naïad of the stream!
And are you, in good sooth,
Could purblind poesy perceive the truth,
A water-sprite,
Who sometimes, for man's dangerous delight,
Puts on a human form and face,
To wear them with a superhuman grace?

A sound of tumult troubles all the air,
Like the low thunders of a sultry sky
Far-rolling ere the downright lightnings glare;
The hills blaze red with warnings; foes draw nigh,
Treading the dark with challenge and reply.
Behold the burden of the prophet's vision;
The gathering hosts, the Valley of Decision,
Dusk with the wings of eagles wheeling o'er.
Day of the Lord, of darkness and not light!
It breaks in thunder and the whirlwind's roar!
Even so, Father! Let Thy will be done;
Turn and o'erturn, end what Thou hast begun
In judgment or in mercy: as for me,
If but the least and frailest, let me be
Evermore numbered with the truly free
Who find Thy service perfect liberty!
I fain would thank Thee that my mortal life
Has reached the hour (albeit through car...

Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult

Three words I will tell you, of meaning full:
The lips of the many shout them;
Yet were they born of no sect or school,
The heart only knows about them:
    That man is of everything worth bereft
    Who in those three words has no faith left:

Man is born free--and is free alway
Even were he born in fetters!
Let not the mob's cry lead you astray,
Or the misdeeds of frantic upsetters:
    Fear not the slave when he breaks his bands;
    Fear nothing from any free man's hands.

And Virtue--it is no empty sound;
That a man can obey her, no folly;
Even if he stumble all over the ground
He yet can follow the Holy;
    And what never wisdom of wise man knew
    A child-like spirit can simply do.

And a God there is--a s...

Only a little scrap of blue
    Preserved with loving care,
But earth has not a brilliant hue
    To me more bright and fair.

Strong drink, like a raging demon,
    Laid on my heart his hand,
When my darling joined with others
    The Loyal Legion * band.

But mystic angels called away
    My loved and precious child,
And o'er life's dark and stormy way
    Swept waves of anguish wild.


This badge of the Loyal Legion
    We placed upon her breast,
As she lay in her little coffin
    Taking her last sweet rest.

To wear that badge as a token
    She earnestly did crave,
So we laid it on her bosom
    To wear it in the grave.

Where sorrow would never reach her
    Nor harsh words smite her ear;...

    As I stand waiting in the rain
    For the foggy hoot of the London train,
    Gazing at silent wall and lamp
    And post and rail and platform damp,
    What is this power that comes to my sight
    That I see a night without the night,
    That I see them clear, yet look them through,
    The silvery things and the darkly blue,
    That the solid wall seems soft as death,
    A wavering and unanchored wraith,
    And rails that shine and stones that stream
    Unsubstantial as a dream?
    What sudden door has opened so,
    What hand has passed, that I should know
    This moving vision not a trance
    That melts the globe of circumstance,
    This sight that marks not least or most
    And makes a stone a passing ghost?
    Is it that a yea...

Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;
Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden, - drift, or sky, or sun, -
The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast
The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky
On all her boughs the stately ches...

If e'er the sacred poem that hath made
Both heav'n and earth copartners in its toil,
And with lean abstinence, through many a year,
Faded my brow, be destin'd to prevail
Over the cruelty, which bars me forth
Of the fair sheep-fold, where a sleeping lamb
The wolves set on and fain had worried me,
With other voice and fleece of other grain
I shall forthwith return, and, standing up
At my baptismal font, shall claim the wreath
Due to the poet's temples: for I there
First enter'd on the faith which maketh souls
Acceptable to God: and, for its sake,
Peter had then circled my forehead thus.

Next from the squadron, whence had issued forth
The first fruit of Christ's vicars on the earth,
Toward us mov'd a light, at view whereof
My Lady, full of gladness, sp...

O strong, upwelling prayers of faith,
From inmost founts of life ye start,
The spirit's pulse, the vital breath
Of soul and heart!

From pastoral toil, from traffic's din,
Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad,
Unheard of man, ye enter in
The ear of God.

Ye brook no forced and measured tasks,
Nor weary rote, nor formal chains;
The simple heart, that freely asks
In love, obtains.

For man the living temple is
The mercy-seat and cherubim,
And all the holy mysteries,
He bears with him.

And most avails the prayer of love,
Which, wordless, shapes itself in needs,
And wearies Heaven for naught above
Our common needs.

Which brings to God's all-perfect will
That trust of His undoubting child
Whereby all seeming goo...

(A Humble Imitation.)

"And birds of calm sit brooding on the charméd wave."

    It is the noon of night,
    And the world's Great Light
Gone out, she widow-like doth carry her:
    The moon hath veiled her face,
    Nor looks on that dread place
Where He lieth dead in sealéd sepulchre;
    And heaven and hades, emptied, lend
Their flocking multitudes to watch and wait the end.

    Tier above tier they rise,
    Their wings new line the skies,
And shed out comforting light among the stars;
    But they of the other place
    The heavenly signs deface,
The gloomy brand of hell their brightness mars;
    Yet high they sit in thronéd state, -
It is the hour of darkness to them dedicate.

    And first and highest set,
...