Courage

. . . So I walked among the willows very quietly all night;
There was no moon at all, at all; no timid star alight;
There was no light at all, at all; I wint from tree to tree,
And I called him as his mother called, but he nivver answered me.

Oh I called him all the night-time, as I walked the wood alone;
And I listened and I listened, but I nivver heard a moan;
Then I found him at the dawnin', when the sorry sky was red:
I was lookin' for the livin', but I only found the dead.

Sure I know that it was Shamus by the silver cross he wore;
But the bugles they were callin', and I heard the cannon roar.
Oh I had no time to tarry, so I said a little prayer,
And I clasped his hands together, and I left him lyin' there.

Now the birds are singin', singin', and I'm home i...

1.
The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

2.
Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.

3.
Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou - and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.

Of all the blessings which my life has known,
I value most, and most praise God for three:
Want, Loneliness, and Pain, those comrades true,

Who masqueraded in the garb of foes
For many a year, and filled my heart with dread.
Yet fickle joys, like false, pretentious friends,
Have proved less worthy than this trio.    First,

Want taught me labour, led me up the steep
And toilsome paths to hills of pure delight,
Trod only by the feet that know fatigue,
And yet press on until the heights appear.

Then loneliness and hunger of the heart
Sent me upreaching to the realms of space,
Till all the silences grew eloquent,
And all their loving forces hailed me friend.

Last, pain taught prayer! placed in my hand the staff
Of close communion with the o...

When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
No, rather smile away despair;
For those have been more sad than I,
With burthens more than I could bear;
Aye, gone rejoicing under care
Where I had sunk in black despair.

When pain disturbs my peace and rest,
Am I a hopeless grief to keep,
When some have slept on torture's breast
And smiled as in the sweetest sleep,
Aye, peace on thorns, in faith forgiven,
And pillowed on the hope of heaven?

Though low and poor and broken down,
Am I to think myself distrest?
No, rather laugh where others frown
And think my being truly blest;
For others I can daily see
More worthy riches worse than me.

Aye, once a stranger blest the earth
Who never caused a heart to mourn,
Whose very voice gave sorrow m...

    Poor, frightened, fluttered, silent one!
        If we had seen your nest of clay
    We would have passed it by, and gone,
        Nor frightened you away.

    For there are others guard a nest
        From hawk and kite and lurking foe,
    And more despair is in their breast
        Than you can ever know.

    Shield the nests where'er they be,
    On the ground or on the tree;
    Guard the poor from treachery.

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May....

Fasten your hair with a golden pin,
And bind up every wandering tress;
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:
It worked at them, day out, day in,
Building a sorrowful loveliness
Out of the battles of old times.
You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,
And bind up your long hair and sigh;
And all men's hearts must burn and beat;
And candle-like foam on the dim sand,
And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,
Live but to light your passing feet.

When falls the soldier brave,
Dead at the feet of wrong,
The poet sings and guards his grave
With sentinels of song.

Songs, march! he gives command,
Keep faithful watch and true;
The living and dead of the conquered land
Have now no guards save you.

Gray ballads! mark ye well!
Thrice holy is your trust!
Go! halt by the fields where warriors fell;
Rest arms! and guard their dust.

List, songs! your watch is long,
The soldiers' guard was brief;
Whilst right is right, and wrong is wrong,
Ye may not seek relief.

Go! wearing the gray of grief!
Go! watch o'er the dead in gray!
Go! guard the private and guard the chief,
And sentinel their clay!

And the songs, in stately rhyme
And with softly sounding tread,
G...

Tune - "Saw ye my father?"



I.

    Where are the joys I have met in the morning,
        That danc'd to the lark's early song?
    Where is the peace that awaited my wand'ring,
        At evening the wild woods among?

II.

    No more a-winding the course of yon river,
        And marking sweet flow'rets so fair:
    No more I trace the light footsteps of pleasure,
        But sorrow and sad sighing care.

III.

    Is it that summer's forsaken our valleys,
        And grim, surly winter is near?
    No, no, the bees' humming round the gay roses,
        Proclaim it the pride of the year.

IV.

    Fain would I hide, what I fear to discover,
        Yet long, long too well have I known,

In superbia il valor.


Valour to pride hath turned; grave holiness
        To vile hypocrisy; all gentle ways
        To empty forms; sound sense to idle lays;
        Pure love to heat; beauty to paint and dress:--
Thanks to you, Poets! you who sing the praise
        Of fabled knights, foul fires, lies, nullities;
        Not virtue, nor the wrapped sublimities
        Of God, as bards were wont in those old days.
How far more wondrous than your phantasies
        Are Nature's works, how far more sweet to sing!
        Thus taught, the soul falsehood and truth descries.
That tale alone is worth the pondering,
        Which hath not smothered history in lies,
        And arms the soul against each sinful thing.

The Fate Of Bass1 - (A Fancy)

On the snow-line of the summit stood the Spaniard’s English slave;
And the frighted condor westward flew afar,
Where the torch of Cotopaxi2 lit the wide Pacific wave,
And the tender moon embraced a new-born star.

Blanched the cheek that Austral breezes off Van Diemen’s coast3 had tanned,
Bent the form that on the deck stood stalwart there;
Slim and pallid as a woman’s was the sailor’s sunburnt hand,
And untimely silver streaked the strong man’s hair.

From the forest far beneath him came the baffled bloodhound’s bay,
From the gusty slope the camp-fire’s fitful glow;
But the pass the Indian told of o’er the cliff beside him lay,
And beyond, the Mighty River’s4 eastward flow.

“Mine...

O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake,
My sweet, wild, fresh three-quarters of a year,
My one Oasis in the dust and drouth
Of city life! I was a sketcher then:
See here, my doing: curves of mountain, bridge,
Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built
When men knew how to build, upon a rock,
With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock:
And here, new-comers in an ancient hold,
New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires,
Here lived the Hills—a Tudor-chimnied bulk
Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.
O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake
With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull
The curate; he was fatter than his cure.

But Edwin Morris, he that knew the names,
Long-learned names of agaric, moss and fern,
Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks,
Who taug...

It came with the threat of a waning moon
And the wail of an ebbing tide,
But many a woman has lived for less,
And many a man has died;
For life upon life took hold and passed,
Strong in a fate set free,
Out of the deep, into the dark,
On for the years to be.

Between the gleam of a waning moon
And the song of an ebbing tide,
Chance upon chance of love and death
Took wing for the world so wide.
Leaf out of leaf is the way of the land,
Wave out of wave of the sea;
And who shall reckon what lives may live
In the life that we bade to be?

To a good Man of most dear memory
This Stone is sacred. Here he lies apart
From the great city where he first drew breath,
Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his bread,
To the strict labours of the merchant's desk
By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks
Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress,
His spirit, but the recompense was high;
Firm Independence, Bounty's rightful sire;
Affections, warm as sunshine, free as air;
And when the precious hours of leisure came,
Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet
With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets
With a keen eye, and overflowing heart:
So genius triumphed over seeming wrong,
And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love
Inspired works potent over smiles and tears.
And as...

Never am I so alone
As when I walk among the crowd -
Blurred masks of stern or grinning stone,
Unmeaning eyes and voices loud.

Gaze dares not encounter gaze, ...
Humbled, I turn my head aside;
When suddenly there is a face ...
Pale, subdued and grievous-eyed.

Ah, I know that visage meek,
Those trembling lips, the eyes that shine
But turn from that which they would seek
With an air piteous, divine!

There is not a line or scar,
Seal of a sorrow or disgrace,
But I know like sigils are
Burned in my heart and on my face.

Speak! O speak! Thou art the one!
But thou hast passed with sad head bowed;
And never am I so alone
As when I walk among the crowd.

How happy they are, in all seeming,
    How gay, or how smilingly proud,
How brightly their faces are beaming,
    These people who make up the crowd!
How they bow, how they bend, how they flutter,
    How they look at each other and smile,
How they glow, and what bon mots they utter!
    But a strange thought has found me the while!

It is odd, but I stand here and fancy
    These people who now play a part,
All forced by some strange necromancy
    To speak, and to act, from the heart.
What a hush would come over the laughter!
    What a silence would fall on the mirth!
And then what a wail would sweep after,
    As the night-wind sweeps over the earth!

If the secrets held under and hidden
    In the intricate hearts of the crowd
Were su...

The lowliest born of all the land,
He wrung from Fate's reluctant hand
The gifts which happier boyhood claims;
And, tasting on a thankless soil
The bitter bread of unpaid toil,
He fed his soul with noble aims.

And Nature, kindly provident,
To him the future's promise lent;
The powers that shape man's destinies,
Patience and faith and toil, he knew,
The close horizon round him grew,
Broad with great possibilities.

By the low hearth-fire's fitful blaze
He read of old heroic days,
The sage's thought, the patriot's speech;
Unhelped, alone, himself he taught,
His school the craft at which he wrought,
His lore the book within his, reach.

He felt his country's need; he knew
The work her children had to do;
And when, at last, he h...

As Jane walked out below the hill,
She saw an old man standing still,
His eyes in tranced sorrow bound
On the broad stretch of barren ground.

His limbs were knarled like aged trees,
His thin beard wrapt about his knees,
His visage broad and parchment white,
Aglint with pale reflected light.

He seemed a creature fall'n afar
From some dim planet or faint star.
Jane scanned him very close, and soon
Cried, "'Tis the old man from the moon."

He raised his voice, a grating creak,
But only to himself would speak.
Groaning with tears in piteous pain,
"O! O! would I were home again."

Then Jane ran off, quick as she could,
To cheer his heart with drink and food.
But ah, too late came ale and bread,
She found the poor soul stretched ...