Courage

I sat me down upon a green bank-side,
Skirting the smooth edge of a gentle river,
Whose waters seemed unwillingly to glide,
Like parting friends who linger while they sever;
Enforced to go, yet seeming still unready,
Backward they wind their way in many a wistful eddy.

Gray o'er my head the yellow-vested willow
Ruffled its hoary top in the fresh breezes,
Glancing in light, like spray on a green billow,
Or the fine frost-work which young winter freezes;
When first his power in infant pastime trying,
Congeals sad autumn's tears on the dead branches lying.

From rocks around hung the loose ivy dangling,
And in the clefts sumach of liveliest green,
Bright ising-stars the little beach was spangling,
The gold-cup sorrel from his gauzy screen
Shone like a ...

Hear a word, a word in season,
for the day is drawing nigh,
When the Cause shall call upon us,
some to live, and some to die!

He that dies shall not die lonely,
many an one hath gone before;
He that lives shall bear no burden
heavier than the life they bore.

Nothing ancient is their story,
e'en but yesterday they bled,
Youngest they of earth's beloved,
last of all the valiant dead.

E'en the tidings we are telling,
was the tale they had to tell,
E'en the hope that our hearts cherish,
was the hope for which they fell.

In the grave where tyrants thrust them,
lies their labour and their pain,
But undying from their sorrow
springeth up the hope again.

Mourn not therefore, nor lament it,
that the world outlives ...

The death of men is not the death
Of rights that urged them to the fray;
    For men may yield
    On battle-field
A noble life with stainless shield,
    And swords may rust
    Above their dust,
    But still, and still
    The touch and thrill
Of freedom's vivifying breath
    Will nerve a heart and rouse a will
    In some hour, in the days to be,
To win back triumphs from defeat;
And those who blame us then will greet
    Right's glorious eternity.

For right lives in a thousand things;
    Its cradle is its martyr's grave,
Wherein it rests awhile until
    The life that heroisms gave
Will rise again, at God's own will,
    And right the wrong,
    Which long and long
Did reign above the true and just;
And thro' the...

Talk not of sad November, when a day
Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon,
And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June,
Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray.

On the unfrosted pool the pillared pines
Lay their long shafts of shadow: the small rill,
Singing a pleasant song of summer still,
A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines.

Hushed the bird-voices and the hum of bees,
In the thin grass the crickets pipe no more;
But still the squirrel hoards his winter store,
And drops his nut-shells from the shag-bark trees.

Softly the dark green hemlocks whisper: high
Above, the spires of yellowing larches show,
Where the woodpecker and home-loving crow
And jay and nut-hatch winter’s threat defy.

O gracious beauty, ever new a...

1.
The death-bell beats! -
The mountain repeats
The echoing sound of the knell;
And the dark Monk now
Wraps the cowl round his brow,
As he sits in his lonely cell.

2.
And the cold hand of death
Chills his shuddering breath,
As he lists to the fearful lay
Which the ghosts of the sky,
As they sweep wildly by,
Sing to departed day.
And they sing of the hour
When the stern fates had power
To resolve Rosa's form to its clay.

3.
But that hour is past;
And that hour was the last
Of peace to the dark Monk's brain.
Bitter tears, from his eyes, gushed silent and fast;
And he strove to suppress them in vain.

4.
Then his fair cross of gold he dashed on the floor,
When the death-knell struck on his ear. -
...

My heart is sick awishing and awaiting:
The lad took up his knapsack, he went, he went his way;
And I looked on for his coming, as a prisoner through the grating
Looks and longs and longs and wishes for its opening day.

On the wild purple mountains, all alone with no other,
The strong terrible mountains he longed, he longed to be;
And he stooped to kiss his father, and he stooped to kiss his mother,
And till I said, "Adieu, sweet Sir," he quite forgot me.

He wrote of their white raiment, the ghostly capes that screen them,
Of the storm winds that beat them, their thunder-rents and scars,
And the paradise of purple, and the golden slopes atween them,
And fields, where grow God's gentian bells, and His crocus stars.

He wrote of frail gauzy clouds, that drop on the...

        Doubt no more that Oberon--
        Never doubt that Pan
        Lived, and played a reed, and ran
        After nymphs in a dark forest,
        In the merry, credulous days,--
        Lived, and led a fairy band
        Over the indulgent land!
        Ah, for in this dourest, sorest
        Age man's eye has looked upon,
        Death to fauns and death to fays,
        Still the dog-wood dares to raise--
        Healthy tree, with trunk and root--
        Ivory bowls that bear no fruit,
        And the starlings and the jays--
        Birds that cannot even sing--
        Dare to come again in spring!

The Future, and its gifts, alone we prize,
    Few joys the Present brings, and those alloy'd;
    Th' expected fulness leaves an aching void;
    But HOPE stands by, and lifts her sunny eyes
That gild the days to come. - She still relies
    The Phantom HAPPINESS not thus shall glide
    Always from life. - Alas! - yet ill betide
    Austere Experience, when she coldly tries
In distant roses to discern the thorn!
    Ah! is it wise to anticipate our pain?
    Arriv'd, it then is soon enough to mourn.
Nor call the dear Consoler false and vain,
    When yet again, shining through april-tears,
    Those fair enlight'ning eyes beam on advancing Years.

    From top to pedestal you scan it lightly -
    Capped head to lettered base - and you are smiling.
    What see you there to set your lips a-quiver?
    An awkward figure cut from ugly granite,
    Aye, roughly hewn, as if unhelped by chisel,
    This peaceful man of war, sculptured grotesquely.
    Still - there is metal in the gun he is holding,
    And in the cannon balls piled up before him -
    The artist's symbols of a real soldier.
    Yet jeer no longer!
    Before you is a soldier of the Union,
    Crowned with the tears and prayers of many mourners.
    The Village set him here for all to honor,
    Here, in the centre of their foot-worn common,
    Where on long, summer evenings boys at baseball
    May gaze and gaze, and make him an example;
 ...

I.
From heavy dreams fair Helen rose,
And eyed the dawning red:
"Alas, my love, thou tarriest long!
O art thou false or dead?"

II.
With gallant Fred'rick's princely power
He sought the bold Crusade;
But not a word from Judah's wars
Told Helen how he sped.

III.
With Paynim and with Saracen
At length a truce was made,
And every knight return'd to dry
The tears his love had shed.

IV.
Our gallant host was homeward bound
With many a song of joy;
Green waved the laurel in each plume,
The badge of victory.

V.
And old and young, and sire and son,
To meet them crowd the way,
With shouts, and mirth, and melody,
The debt of love to pay.

VI.
Full many a maid her true-love met,
And sobb'd ...

DECEMBER 28, 1879.

A dim, vague shrinking haunts my soul,
    My spirit bodeth ill--
As some far-off restraining bank
Had burst, and waters, many a rank,
    Were marching on my hill;

As if I had no fire within
    For thoughts to sit about;
As if I had no flax to spin,
No lamp to lure the good things in
    And keep the bad things out.

The wind, south-west, raves in the pines
    That guard my cottage round;
The sea-waves fall in stormy lines
Below the sandy cliffs and chines,
    And swell the roaring sound.

The misty air, the bellowing wind
    Not often trouble me;
The storm that's outside of the mind
Doth oftener wake my heart to find
    More peace and liberty.

Why is not such my fate to-night?
...

Against the sunset's glowing wall
The city towers rise black and tall,
Where Zorah, on its rocky height,
Stands like an armed man in the light.

Down Eshtaol's vales of ripened grain
Falls like a cloud the night amain,
And up the hillsides climbing slow
The barley reapers homeward go.

Look, dearest! how our fair child's head
The sunset light hath hallowed,
Where at this olive's foot he lies,
Uplooking to the tranquil skies.

Oh, while beneath the fervent heat
Thy sickle swept the bearded wheat,
I've watched, with mingled joy and dread,
Our child upon his grassy bed.

Joy, which the mother feels alone
Whose morning hope like mine had flown,
When to her bosom, over-blessed,
A dearer life than hers is pressed.

Dread,...

I.

Here we halt our march, and pitch our tent
On the rugged forest ground,
And light our fire with the branches rent
By winds from the beeches round.
Wild storms have torn this ancient wood,
But a wilder is at hand,
With hail of iron and rain of blood,
To sweep and waste the land.

II.

How the dark wood rings with voices shrill,
That startle the sleeping bird;
To-morrow eve must the voice be still,
And the step must fall unheard.
The Briton lies by the blue Champlain,
In Ticonderoga's towers,
And ere the sun rise twice again,
The towers and the lake are ours.

III.

Fill up the bowl from the brook that glides
Where the fireflies light the brake;
A ruddier juice the Briton hides
In his fortress by the lak...

Down the white ward with slow, unswerving tread
He came ere break of day -
A cowl was drawn about his down-bent head,
His misty robes were grey.

And no man even knew that he went by,
None saw or heard him pass;
Softly he moved as clouds drift down the sky,
Or shadows cross the grass.

Close to a little bed where one lay low,
At last he took his stand,
And touched the head that tossed in restless woe
With gentle, outstretched hand.

"When bitterness," he said, "is at an end,
And joy grows far and dim,
I am the angel whom the Lord doth send
To lead men on to Him.

"Past the innumerable stars, my friend,
Past all the winds that blow,
We, too, must travel to our journey's end.
Arise! And let us go!"

"Stay! Stay!" the ...

    When I grow old they'll come to me and say:
    Did you then know him in that distant day?
    Did you speak with him, touch his hand, observe
    The proud eyes' fire, soft voice and light lips' curve?
    And I shall answer: This man was my friend;
    Call to my memory, add, improve, amend
    And count up all the meetings that we had
    And note his good and touch upon his bad.

    When I grow older and more garrulous,
    I shall discourse on the dead poet thus:
    I said to him ... he answered unto me...
    He dined with me one night in Trinity...
    I supped with him in King's ... Ah, pitiful
    The twisted memories of an ancient fool
    And sweet the silence of a young man dead!
    Now far in Lemnos sleeps that golden head,
    Unchang...

"Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico." - HORACE.


Dear LONG, in this sequester'd scene,
While all around in slumber lie,
The joyous days, which ours have been
Come rolling fresh on Fancy's eye;
Thus, if, amidst the gathering storm,
While clouds the darken'd noon deform,
Yon heaven assumes a varied glow,
I hail the sky's celestial bow,
Which spreads the sign of future peace,
And bids the war of tempests cease.
Ah! though the present brings but pain,
I think those days may come again;
Or if, in melancholy mood,
Some lurking envious fear intrude,
To check my bosom's fondest thought,
And interrupt the golden dream,
I crush the fiend with malice fraught,
And, still, indulge my wonted theme.
Although we ne'er again can trace,
In Gra...

Strophe I

My two-fold Book! single in show
    But double in Contents,
Neat, but not curiously adorn'd
    Which in his early youth,
A poet gave, no lofty one in truth
Although an earnest wooer of the Muse--
Say, while in cool Ausonian[2] shades
    Or British wilds he roam'd,
Striking by turns his native lyre,
    By turns the Daunian lute
    And stepp'd almost in air,--

Antistrophe

Say, little book, what furtive hand
Thee from thy fellow books convey'd,
What time, at the repeated suit
        Of my most learned Friend,
I sent thee forth an honour'd traveller
From our great city to the source of Thames,
                    Caerulean sire!
Where rise the fountains and the raptures ring,
        Of the Aoni...

They were like dreams that in a drowsy hour
A sad old God had dreamed in loneliness of power.
They were like dreams that in his drowsy mind
Rose slowly and then, darkening, made him wise and blind--
So that he saw no more the level sun,
Nor the small solid shadow of unclouded noon.
The dark green heights rose slowly from the green
Of the dark water till the sky was narrowly seen;
Only at night the lifting walls were still,
And stars were bright and calm above each calm dark hill.
... I could not think but that a God grown old
Saw in a dream or waking all this round of bold
And wavelike hills, and knew them but a thought,
Or but a wave uptost and poised awhile then caught
Back to the sea with waves a million more
That rise and pause and break at last upon the shore....