Courage

Beside the path, on either hand,
To keep the garden beds,
The rusted iron pickets stand
Thin shafts and pointed heads.

And straight my spirit swooping goes
Across the waves of time
Till I’m a little boy who knows
A fence is made to climb;

And bed and lawn and gloomy space
By thicket overgrown
Are wonderlands where I may trace
The beckoning Unknown.

But O the cruelty that strikes
My elder heart with dread
The writhing form upon the spikes,
The trickled pool of red!

So, every day I pass and see
The fence the urchin scales,
The little boy stands up in me
To curse the iron rails.

I.

I heard the ancient forest talk,
(Its voice was like a wandering breeze):
It said, "Who is it comes to walk
Along my paths when, white as chalk,
The moon hangs o'er my sleeping trees?
What presence is it no one sees?"

II.

And then I heard a voice reply,
That seemed far off yet very near;
It sounded from the earth and sky,
And said, "A spirit walketh here,
Whom mortals know as Awe and Fear.
Terrible and beautiful am I."

III.

And then I heard the meadows say,
(Their voice was as the sound of streams,
Or rain that comes from far away):
"Who sits amid us here and dreams,
When sunlight on our blossoms gleams,
And keeps us company all day?"

IV.

And then I heard a voice intone,
A voice no...

Lay him down where the fern is thick and fair.
Fain was he for life, here lies he low:
With the blood washed clean from his brow and his beautiful hair,
Lay him here in the dell where the orchids grow.

Let the birch-bark torches roar in the gloom,
And the trees crowd up in a quiet startled ring
So lone is the land that in this lonely room
Never before has breathed a human thing.

Cover him well in his canvas shroud, and the moss
Part and heap again on his quiet breast,
What recks he now of gain, or love, or loss
Who for love gained rest?

While she who caused it all hides her insolent eyes
Or braids her hair with the ribbons of lust and of lies,
And he who did the deed fares out like a hunted beast
To lurk where the musk-ox tramples the barren groun...

In darkness the loud sea makes moan;
And earth is shaken, and all evils creep
About her ways.
Oh, now to know you sleep!
Out of the whirling blinding moil, alone,
Out of the slow grim fight,
One thought to wing, to you, asleep,
In some cool room that's open to the night
Lying half-forward, breathing quietly,
One white hand on the white
Unrumpled sheet, and the ever-moving hair
Quiet and still at length! . . .

Your magic and your beauty and your strength,
Like hills at noon or sunlight on a tree,
Sleeping prevail in earth and air.

In the sweet gloom above the brown and white
Night benedictions hover; and the winds of night
Move gently round the room, and watch you there.
And through the dreadful hours
The trees and waters and the hill...

In Bruges town is many a street
Whence busy life hath fled;
Where, without hurry, noiseless feet
The grass-grown pavement tread.
There heard we, halting in the shade
Flung from a Convent-tower,
A harp that tuneful prelude made
To a voice of thrilling power.

The measure, simple truth to tell,
Was fit for some gay throng;
Though from the same grim turret fell
The shadow and the song.
When silent were both voice and chords,
The strain seemed doubly dear,
Yet sad as sweet, for 'English' words
Had fallen upon the ear.

It was a breezy hour of eve;
And pinnacle and spire
Quivered and seemed almost to heave,
Clothed with innocuous fire;
But, where we stood, the setting sun
Showed little of his state;
And, if the glory reached ...

Thou most majestic Queen of sculptural art,
    What learnèd architect designed thy throne?
Who traced thy stately form in head and heart,
    And sent the sculptor forth to carve the stone?
O speak, fair Queen, for thou art not alone;
    Ten thousand unseen voices join refrain
That softly floats in one melodious tone,
    As sweet as any ancient harper's strain
    In odes to Indiana's silent victors slain.

Thy court well marks the conquest of the West,
    A citadel sprung out the forest wild,
A mecca where the pilgrims quietly rest:
    Each dame's content - content each sportive child;
The fiery redmen nevermore revile,
    Nor haunt the footprints of thy daring sons,
Whose noble spheres are widening all the while,
    Like as some brilliant star it...

Fairer than we the woods of May,
Yet sweeter blossoms do not grow
Than these we send you from our snow,
Cramped are their stems by winter's cold,
And stained their leaves with last year's mould;
For these are flowers which fought their way
Through ice and cold in sun and air,
With all a soul might do and dare,
Hope, that outlives a world's decay,
Enduring faith that will not die,
And love that gives, not knowing why,
Therefore we send them unto you;
And if they are not all your due,
Once they have looked into your face
Your graciousness will give them place.
You know they were not born to bloom
Like roses in a crowded room;
For though courageous they are shy,
Loving but one sweet hand and eye.
Ah, should you take them to the rest,
The warmt...

"Dear Charlie," breathed a soldier,
"O comrade true and tried,
Who in the heat of battle
Pressed closely to my side;
I feel that I am stricken,
My life is ebbing fast;
I fain would have you with me,
Dear Charlie, till the last.

"It seems so sudden, Charlie,
To think to-morrow's sun
Will look upon me lifeless,
And I not twenty-one!
I little dreamed this morning,
Twould bring my last campaign;
God's ways are not as our ways,
And I will not complain.

"There's one at home, dear Charlie,
Will mourn for me when dead,
Whose heart--it is a mother's--
Can scarce be comforted.
You'll write and tell her, Charlie,
With my dear love, that I
Fought bravely as a soldier should,
And died as he should die.

"And you will...

Gray lonely rocks about thee stand,
Ignored of sun and dew,
Yet is thy breath upon the land,
To thy vocation true.

So come they character to me
That works in sunless ways,
And I shall learn to give with thee
Dark hills a constant praise.

We know where deepest lies the snow,
And where the frost-winds keenest blow,
O'er every mountain's brow,
We long have known and learnt to bear
The wandering outlaw's toil and care,
But where we late were hunted, there
Our foes are hunted now.

We have their princely homes, and they
To our wild haunts are chased away,
Dark woods, and desert caves.
And we can range from hill to hill,
And chase our vanquished victors still;
Small respite will they find until
They slumber in their graves.

But I would rather be the hare,
That crouching in its sheltered lair
Must start at every sound;
That forced from cornfields waving wide
Is driven to seek the bare hillside,
Or in the tangled copse to hide,
Than be the hunter's hound.

I.

From hill and hollow, side by side,
The shadows came, like dreams, to sit
And watch, mysterious, sunset-eyed,
The wool-winged moths and bats aflit,
And the lone owl that cried and cried.
And then the forest rang a gong,
Hoarse, toadlike; and from out the gate
Of darkness came a sound of song,
As of a gnome that called his mate,
Who answered in his own strange tongue.
And all the forest leaned to hear,
And saw, from forth the entangling trees,
A naked spirit drawing near,
A glimmering presence, whom the breeze
Kept whispering, "Forward! Have no fear."

II.

The woodland, seeming at a loss,
Afraid to breathe, or make a sound,
Poured, where her silvery feet should cross,
A dripping pathway on the ground,
And hedged it i...

As I ebb'd with the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,
Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems,
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land of the globe.

Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those slender windrows,
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide,
Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me...

'Tis once in life our dreams come true,
    The myths of long ago,
Quite real though fairy-like their view,
    They surge with ebb and flow;
Thus thou, O haunt of childhood dreams,
    More beauteous and fair
Than Nature's landscape and her streams,
    Historic Harvard Square.

My soul hath panted long for thee,
    Like as the wounded hart
That vainly strives himself to free
    Full from the archer's dart;
And struggled oft all, all alone
    With burdens hard to bear,
But now I stand at Wisdom's throne
    To-night in Harvard Square.

A night most tranquil, - I was proud
    My thoughts soared up afar,
To moonbeams pouring through the cloud,
    Or some lone twinkling star;
And musing thus, my quickened pace
    Beat to ...

As much as 'twixt the third hour's close and dawn,
Appeareth of heav'n's sphere, that ever whirls
As restless as an infant in his play,
So much appear'd remaining to the sun
Of his slope journey towards the western goal.

Evening was there, and here the noon of night;
and full upon our forehead smote the beams.
For round the mountain, circling, so our path
Had led us, that toward the sun-set now
Direct we journey'd: when I felt a weight
Of more exceeding splendour, than before,
Press on my front. The cause unknown, amaze
Possess'd me, and both hands against my brow
Lifting, I interpos'd them, as a screen,
That of its gorgeous superflux of light
Clipp'd the diminish'd orb. As when the ray,
Striking On water or the surface clear
Of mirror, leaps unto t...

There is a power whose inspiration fills
Nature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought,
Like airy dew ere any drop distils,
Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught
Unseen which interfused throughout the whole
Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul.
Now when, the drift of old desire renewing,
Warm tides flow northward over valley and field,
When half-forgotten sound and scent are wooing
From their deep-chambered recesses long sealed
Such memories as breathe once more
Of childhood and the happy hues it wore,
Now, with a fervor that has never been
In years gone by, it stirs me to respond, -
Not as a force whose fountains are within
The faculties of the percipient mind,
Subject with them to darkness and decay,
But something absolute, somethi...

Death himself in the rain . . . death himself . . .
Death in the savage sunlight . . . skeletal death . . .
I hear the clack of his feet,
Clearly on stones, softly in dust;
He hurries among the trees
Whirling the leaves, tossing he hands from waves.
Listen! the immortal footsteps beat.
Death himself in the grass, death himself,
Gyrating invisibly in the sun,
Scatters the grass-blades, whips the wind,
Tears at boughs with malignant laughter:
On the long echoing air I hear him run.
Death himself in the dusk, gathering lilacs,
Breaking a white-fleshed bough,
Strewing purple on a cobwebbed lawn,
Dancing, dancing,
The long red sun-rays glancing
On flailing arms, skipping with hideous knees
Cavorting grotesque ecstasies:
I do not see him, but I see th...

The twilight o'er Italia's sky
Had spread a shadowy veil,
And one by one the solemn stars
Looked forth, serene and pale;
As quietly the waning light
Through a high casement stole,
And fell on one with silver hair,
Who shrived a passing soul.

No costly pomp or luxury
Relieved that chamber's gloom,
But glowing forms, by limner's art
Created, thronged the room:
And as the low winds carried far
The chime for evening prayer,
The dying painter's earnest tones
Fell on the languid air.

"The spectral form of Death is nigh,
The thread of life is spun:
Ave Maria! I have looked
Upon my latest sun.
And yet 't is not with pale disease
This frame is worn away;
Nor yet - nor yet with length of years; -
A child but yesterday,"

To the Right Honourable Sir Spencer Compton.


Round some fair tree th' ambitious woodbine grows,
And breathes her sweets on the supporting boughs;
So sweet the verse, th' ambitious verse, should be,
(O! pardon mine) that hopes support from thee;
Thee, Compton, born o'er senates to preside,
Their dignity to raise, their councils guide;
Deep to discern, and widely to survey,
And kingdoms' fates, without ambition, weigh;
Of distant virtues nice extremes to blend,
The crown's asserter, and the people's friend:
Nor dost thou scorn, amid sublimer views,
To listen to the labours of the muse;
Thy smiles protect her, while thy talents fire,
And 'tis but half thy glory to inspire.
Vex'd at a public fame, so justly won,
The jealous Chremes is with spleen undon...