Courage

In the Valley of the Vire
    Still is seen an ancient mill,
With its gables quaint and queer,
    And beneath the window-sill,
            On the stone,
            These words alone:
"Oliver Basselin lived here."

Far above it, on the steep,
    Ruined stands the old Chateau;
Nothing but the donjon-keep
    Left for shelter or for show.
            Its vacant eyes
            Stare at the skies,
Stare at the valley green and deep.

Once a convent, old and brown,
    Looked, but ah! it looks no more,
From the neighboring hillside down
    On the rushing and the roar
            Of the stream
            Whose sunny gleam
Cheers the little Norman town.

In that darksome mill of stone,
    To the water's dash and din...

I.

I shall not soon forget her and her eyes,
The haunts of hate, where suffering seemed to write
Its own dark name, whose syllables are sighs,
In strange and starless night.

I shall not soon forget her and her face,
So quiet, yet uneasy as a dream,
That stands on tip-toe in a haunted place
And listens for a scream.

She made me feel as one, alone, may feel
In some grand ghostly house of olden time,
The presence of a treasure, walls conceal,
The secret of a crime.


II.

With lambent faces, mimicking the moon,
The water lilies lie;
Dotting the darkness of the long lagoon
Like some black sky.

A face, the whiteness of a water-flower,
And pollen-golden hair,
In shadow half, half in the moonbeams' glower,

This poem must be done to-day;
Then, I 'll e'en to it.
I must not dream my time away,--
I 'm sure to rue it.
The day is rather bright, I know
The Muse will pardon
My half-defection, if I go
Into the garden.
It must be better working there,--
I 'm sure it's sweeter:
And something in the balmy air
May clear my metre.

[In the Garden.]

Ah this is noble, what a sky!
What breezes blowing!
The very clouds, I know not why,
Call one to rowing.
The stream will be a paradise
To-day, I 'll warrant.
I know the tide that's on the rise
Will seem a torrent;
I know just how the leafy boughs
Are all a-quiver;
I know how many skiffs and scows
Are on the river.
I think I 'll just go out awhile
Before I write it;...

Frederick leaves the land of France,
Homeward hastes his steps to measure,
Careless casts the parting glance
On the scene of former pleasure.

Joying in his prancing steed,
Keen to prove his untried blade,
Hope's gay dreams the soldier lead
Over mountain, moor, and glade.

Helpless, ruin'd, left forlorn,
Lovely Alice wept alone;
Mourn'd o'er love's fond contract torn,
Hope, and peace, and honour flown.

Mark her breast's convulsive throbs!
See, the tear of anguish flows!
Mingling soon with bursting sobs,
Loud the laugh of frenzy rose.

Wild she cursed, and wild she pray'd;
Seven long days and nights are o'er;
Death in pity brought his aid,
As the village bell struck four.

Far from her, and far from France,
Fai...

Youth rambles on life’s arid mount,
And strikes the rock, and finds the vein,
And brings the water from the fount,
The fount which shall not flow again.

The man mature with labour chops
For the bright stream a channel grand,
And sees not that the sacred drops
Ran off and vanish’d out of hand.

And then the old man totters nigh
And feebly rakes among the stones.
The mount is mute, the channel-dry;
And down he lays his weary bones

    Oh! had each Scot of ancient times,
        Been Jeany Scott, as thou art,
    The bravest heart on English ground
        Had yielded like a coward!

The crooked paths go every way
Upon the hill - they wind about
Through the heather in and out
Of the quiet sunniness.
And there the goats, day after day,
Stray in sunny quietness,
Cropping here and cropping there,
As they pause and turn and pass,
Now a bit of heather spray,
Now a mouthful of the grass.

In the deeper sunniness,
In the place where nothing stirs,
Quietly in quietness,
In the quiet of the furze,
For a time they come and lie
Staring on the roving sky.

If you approach they run away,
They leap and stare, away they bound,
With a sudden angry sound,
To the sunny quietude;
Crouching down where nothing stirs
In the silence of the furze,
Couching down again to brood
In the sunny solitude.

If I were...

    To the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole.


        Carmina tum melius, cum venerit ipse, canemus.

                        VIRG.


On this last labour, this my closing strain,
Smile, Walpole! or the Nine inspire in vain:
To thee, 'tis due; that verse how justly thine,
Where Brunswick's glory crowns the whole design!
That glory, which thy counsels make so bright;
That glory, which on thee reflects a light.
Illustrious commerce, and but rarely known!
To give, and take, a lustre from the throne.
    Nor think that thou art foreign to my theme;
The fountain is not foreign to the stream.
How all mankind will be surprised, to see
This flood of British folly charg'd on thee!
Say, Britain! whence this caprice of thy sons,
Which thro' th...

See the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my lady rideth!
Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
And well the car Love guideth.
As she goes, all hearts do duty
Unto her beauty;
And enamour'd, do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,
That they still were to run by her side,
Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
Than words that soothe her;
And from her arched brows, such a grace
Sheds itself through the face
As alone there triumphs to the life
All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow...

    Four little chests all in a row,
    Dim with dust, and worn by time,
    All fashioned and filled, long ago,
    By children now in their prime.
    Four little keys hung side by side,
    With faded ribbons, brave and gay
    When fastened there, with childish pride,
    Long ago, on a rainy day.
    Four little names, one on each lid,
    Carved out by a boyish hand,
    And underneath there lieth hid
    Histories of the happy band
    Once playing here, and pausing oft
    To hear the sweet refrain,
    That came and went on the roof aloft,
    In the falling summer rain.


    "Meg" on the first lid, smooth and fair.
    I look in with loving eyes,
    For folded here, with well-known care,
    A goodly gathering lies,
 ...

The shepherd's brow fronting forked lightning, owns
The horror and the havoc and the glory
Of it. Angels fall, they are towers, from heaven - a story
Of just, majestical, and giant groans.
But man - we, scaffold of score brittle bones;
Who breathe, from groundlong babyhood to hoary
Age gasp; whose breath is our memento mori -
What bass is our viol for tragic tones?
He! Hand to mouth he lives, and voids with shame;
And, blazoned in however bold the name,
Man Jack the man is, just; his mate a hussy.
And I that die these deaths, that feed this flame,
That ... in smooth spoons spy life's masque mirrored: tame
My tempests there, my fire and fever fussy.

Soul, dost thou fear
For to-day or to-morrow?
'Tis the part of a fool
To go seeking sorrow.
Of thine own doing
Thou canst not contrive them.
'Tis He that shall give them;
Thou may'st not outlive them.
So why cloud to-day
With fear of the sorrow,
That may or may not
Come to-morrow?

Far in the purple valleys of illusion
I see her waiting, like the soul of music,
With deep eyes, lovelier than cerulean pansies,
Shadow and fire, yet merciless as poison;
With red lips, sweeter than Arabian storax,
Yet bitterer than myrrh.--O tears and kisses!
O eyes and lips, that haunt my soul forever!

Again Spring walks transcendent on the mountains:
The woods are hushed: the vales are blue with shadows:
Above the heights, steeped in a thousand splendors,
Like some vast canvas of the gods, hangs burning
The sunset's wild sciography: and slowly
The moon treads heaven's proscenium,--night's stately
White queen of love and tragedy and madness.

Again I know forgotten dreams and longings;
Ideals lost; desires dead and buried
Beside the altar sacrific...

High is our calling, Friend! Creative Art
(Whether the instrument of words she use,
Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,)
Demands the service of a mind and heart,
Though sensitive, yet, in their weakest part,
Heroically fashioned, to infuse
Faith in the whispers of the lonely Muse,
While the whole world seems adverse to desert.
And, oh! when Nature sinks, as oft she may,
Through long-lived pressure of obscure distress,
Still to be strenuous for the bright reward,
And in the soul admit of no decay,
Brook no continuance of weak-mindedness
Great is the glory, for the strife is hard!

I.

They who maintained their rights,
Through storm and stress,
And walked in all the ways
That God made known,
Led by no wandering lights,
And by no guess,
Through dark and desolate days
Of trial and moan:
Here let their monument
Rise, like a word
In rock commemorative
Of our Land's youth;
Of ways the Puritan went,
With soul love-spurred
To suffer, die, and live
For faith and truth.
Here they the corner-stone
Of Freedom laid;
Here in their hearts' distress
They lit the lights
Of Liberty alone;
Here, with God's aid,
Conquered the wilderness,
Secured their rights.
Not men, but giants, they,
Who wrought with toil
And sweat of brawn and brain
Their freehold here;
Who, with their blood, each day...

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,


When first I saw our banner wave
Above the nation’s council-hall,
I heard beneath its marble wall
The clanking fetters of the slave!

In the foul market-place I stood,
And saw the Christian mother sold,
And childhood with its locks of gold,
Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood.

I shut my eyes, I held my breath,
And, smothering down the wrath and shame
That set my Northern blood aflame,
Stood silent, where to speak was death.

Beside me gloomed the prison-cell
Where wasted one in slow decline
For uttering simple words of mine,
And loving freedom all too well.

The flag that floated from the dome
Flapped menace in the morning air;
I stood a perilled stranger w...

(Noel.)


By the sad fellowship of human suffering,
    By the bereavements that are thine and mine,
I venture--oh, forgive me!--with this offering,
    I would it were to thee God's oil and wine

I too have suffered--is it then surprising
    If to thy sacred grief I enter in?
My spirit draws near thine all sympathising,
    Sorrow, like love, "makes aliens near of kin."

Thou'rt weeping for thy gathered blossoms, mother,
    The Lord had need of him, and called him soon,
In morning freshness ere the dews of heaven
    Were chased before the burning rays of noon.

Thy darling child, like to God's summer blossom,
    Was very fair and pleasant to the sight,
The sunny head that rested on thy bosom,
    The loving eyes that were thy hear...

I

"Why are your songs all wild and bitter sad
As funeral dirges with the orphans' cries?
Each night since first the world was made hath had
A sequent day to laugh it down the skies.
Chant us a glee to make our hearts rejoice,
Or seal in silence this unmanly moan."
My friend, I have no power to rule my voice
A spirit lifts me where I lie alone,
And thrills me into song by its own laws;
That which I feel, but seldom know, indeed
Tempering the melody it could not cause.
The bleeding heart cannot forever bleed
Inwardly solely; on the wan lips, too,
Dark blood will bubble ghastly into view.


II

Striving to sing glad songs, I but attain
Wild discords sadder than Grief's saddest tune;
As if an owl with his harsh screech should strain<...