Courage

I.

I stood in an ancient garden
With high red walls around;
Over them grey and green lichens
In shadowy arabesque wound.

The topmost climbing blossoms
On fields kine-haunted looked out;
But within were shelter and shadow,
With daintiest odours about.

There were alleys and lurking arbours,
Deep glooms into which to dive.
The lawns were as soft as fleeces,
Of daisies I counted but five.

The sun-dial was so aged
It had gathered a thoughtful grace;
'Twas the round-about of the shadow
That so had furrowed its face.

The flowers were all of the oldest
That ever in garden sprung;
Red, and blood-red, and dark purple
The rose-lamps flaming hung.

Along the borders fringed
With broad thick edges of box

I marvel how Nature could ever find space
For so many strange contrasts in one human face:
There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom
And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.

There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;
Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain
Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease,
Would be rational peace, a philosopher's ease.

There's indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,
And attention full ten times as much as there needs;
Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy;
And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.

There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare
Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there,
There's virtue, the title it surely may claim,<...

"Another day will follow this,"
Ah, - that shall sewerly be,
But th' day 'at dawns to-morn, my lad,
May nivver dawn for thee,
This day is thine, soa use it weel,
For fear when it has passed,
Some duty has been left undone
On th' day at proved thy last.

What's passed an gooan's beyond recall,
An th' futer's all unknown;
Dooant specilate on what's to be,
Neglect in what's thi own.
When morn in comes thank God tha'rt spared
To see another day;
An when tha goas to bed at neet,
Life's burdens on Him lay.

Although thy station may be low,
Thy life's conditions hard,
Mak th' best o' what falls to thi lot,
An tha shall win reward.
Man's days ov toil on earth are few
Compared to that long rest
'At stretches throo Eternity,
...

'Twas on a day of cold and sleet,
A little nomad of the street
With tattered garments, shoeless feet,
    And face with hunger wan,
Great wonder-eyes, though beautiful,
Hedged in by features pinched and dull,
Betraying lines so pitiful
    By sorrow sharply drawn;

Ere yet the service half was o'er,
Approached the great cathedral door
As choir and organ joined to pour
    Their sweetness on the air;
Then, sudden, bold, impelled to glide
With fleetness to the altar's side,
Her trembling form she sought to hide
    Amid the shadows there,

Half fearful lest some worshiper,
Enveloped close in robes of fur,
Had cast a scornful glance at her
    As she had stolen by,
But soon the swelling anthem, fraught
With reverence, her spirit...

As I lie at rest on a patch of clover
In the Western Park when the day is done,
I watch as the wild black swans fly over
With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun;
And I hear the clang of their leader crying
To a lagging mate in the rearward flying,
And they fade away in the darkness dying,
Where the stars are mustering one by one.

O ye wild black swans, 'twere a world of wonder
For a while to join in your westward flight,
With the stars above and the dim earth under,
Through the cooling air of the glorious night.
As we swept along on our pinions winging,
We should catch the chime of a church-bell ringing,
Or the distant note of a torrent singing,
Or the far-off flash of a station light.

From the northern lakes with the reeds and rushes,
Wh...

O Lord, I cannot but believe
The birds do sing thy praises then, when they sing to one another,
And they are lying seed-sown land when the winter makes them grieve,
Their little bosoms breeding songs for the summer to unsmother!

If thou hadst finished me, O Lord,
Nor left out of me part of that great gift that goes to singing,
I sure had known the meaning high of the songster's praising word,
Had known upon what thoughts of thee his pearly talk he was stringing!

I should have read the wisdom hid
In the storm-inspired melody of thy thrush's bosom solemn:
I should not then have understood what thy free spirit did
To make the lark-soprano mount like to a geyser-column!

I think I almost understand
Thy owl, his muffled swiftness, moon-round eyes, and intoned hoo...

            Aye, but she?
            Your other sister and my other soul
            Grave Silence, lovelier
            Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
            Clio, not you,
            Not you, Calliope,
            Nor all your wanton line,
            Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me
            For Silence once departed,
            For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,
            Whom evermore I follow wistfully,
        Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through;
        Thalia, not you,
        Not you, Melpomene,
        Not your incomparable feet, O thin Terpsichore,
        I seek in this great hall,
        But one more pale, more pensive, most beloved of you all.
        I se...

Come, my Celia, let us prove,
While we may, how wise is love -
Love grown old and grey with years,
Love whose blood is thinned with tears.

Philosophic lover I,
Broke my heart, its love run dry,
And I warble passion's words
But to hear them sing like birds.

When the lightning struck my side,
Love shrieked and for ever died,
Leaving nought of him behind
But these playthings of the mind.

Now the real play is over
I can only act a lover,
Now the mimic play begins
With its puppet joys and sins.

When the heart no longer feels,
And the blood with caution steals,
Then, ah! then - my heart, forgive! -
Then we dare begin to live.

Dipped in Stygian waves of pain,
We can never feel again;
Time may hurl his...

    The fluttering leaves above his grave,
    The grasses creeping toward the light,
    The flowers fragile, sweet, and brave,
    That hide the earth clods from our sight,

    The swelling buds on shrub and tree,
    The golden gleam of daffodil,
    The violet blooming fair and free
    Where late the winds blew harsh and chill,

    The lily lifting up its breath
    Where snowdrifts spread but yesterday -
    All cry: "Where is thy sting, O death?
    O grave, where is thy victory?"

    Each Eastertide the old world sings
    Her anthem sweet and true and strong,
    And all the tender growing things
    Join in her resurrection song.

        Thank God my brain is not inclined to cut
        Such capers every day! I 'm just about
        Mellow, but then--There goes the tent-flap shut.
        Rain 's in the wind. I thought so: every snout
        Was twitching when the keeper turned me out.

        That screaming parrot makes my blood run cold.
        Gabriel's trump! the big bull elephant
        Squeals "Rain!" to the parched herd. The monkeys scold,
        And jabber that it 's rain water they want.
        (It makes me sick to see a monkey pant.)

        I 'll foot it home, to try and make believe
        I 'm sober. After this I stick to beer,
        And drop the circus when the sane folks leave.
        A man 's a fool to look at things too near:
        They look back, and begi...

While not a leaf seems faded; while the fields,
With ripening harvest prodigally fair,
In brightest sunshine bask; this nipping air,
Sent from some distant clime where Winter wields
His icy scimitar, a foretaste yields
Of bitter change, and bids the flowers beware;
And whispers to the silent birds, "Prepare
Against the threatening foe your trustiest shields."
For me, who under kindlier laws belong
To Nature's tuneful quire, this rustling dry
Through leaves yet green, and yon crystalline sky,
Announce a season potent to renew,
'Mid frost and snow, the instinctive joys of song,
And nobler cares than listless summer knew.

I

Over the broken world, the dark gone by,
Horror of outcast darkness torn with wars;
And timeless agony
Of the white fire, heaped high by blinded Stars,
Unfaltering, unaghast;--
Out of the midmost Fire
At last,--at last,--
Cry! ...
O darkness' one desire,--
O darkness, have you heard?--
Black Chaos, blindly striving towards the Word?
--The Cry!

Behold thy conqueror, Death!
Behold, behold from whom
It flutters forth, that triumph of First-Breath,
Victorious one that can but breathe and cling,--
This pulsing flower,--this weaker than a wing,
Halcyon thing!--
Cradled above unfathomable doom.


II

Under my feet, O Death,
Under my trembling feet!
Back, through the gates of hell, now give me way.
I...

In the frail hepaticas,
That the early Springtide tossed,
Sapphire-like, along the ways
Of the woodlands that she crossed,
I behold, with other eyes,
Footprints of a dream that flies.
One who leads me; whom I seek:
In whose loveliness there is
All the glamour that the Greek
Knew as wind-borne Artemis.
I am mortal. Woe is me!
Her sweet immortality!
Spirit, must I always fare,
Following thy averted looks?
Now thy white arm, now thy hair,
Glimpsed among the trees and brooks?
Thou who hauntest, whispering,
All the slopes and vales of Spring.
Cease to lure! or grant to me
All thy beauty! though it pain,
Slay with splendor utterly!
Flash revealment on my brain!
And one moment let me see
All thy immortality!

I.

The hills are full of prophecies
And ancient voices of the dead;
Of hidden shapes that no man sees,
Pale, visionary presences,
That speak the things no tongue hath said,
No mind hath thought, no eye hath read.
The streams are full of oracles,
And momentary whisperings;
An immaterial beauty swells
Its breezy silver o'er the shells
With wordless speech that sings and sings
The message of diviner things.
No indeterminable thought is theirs,
The stars', the sunsets' and the flowers';
Whose inexpressible speech declares
Th' immortal Beautiful, who shares
This mortal riddle which is ours,
Beyond the forward-flying hours.

II.

It holds and beckons in the streams;
It lures and touches us in all
The flowers of the golde...

    Look! look there!
Send your eyes across the gray
By my finger-point away
Through the vaporous, fumy air.
Beyond the air, you see the dark?
Beyond the dark, the dawning day?
On its horizon, pray you, mark
Something like a ruined heap
Of worlds half-uncreated, that go back:
Down all the grades through which they rose
Up to harmonious life and law's repose,
Back, slow, to the awful deep
Of nothingness, mere being's lack:
On its surface, lone and bare,
Shapeless as a dumb despair,
Formless, nameless, something lies:
Can the vision in your eyes
Its idea recognize?

    'Tis a poor lost soul, alack!--
Half he lived some ages back;
But, with hardly opened eyes,
Thinking him already wise,
Down he sat and wrote a book;
Drew h...

Sweet Flower! belike one day to have
A place upon thy Poet's grave,
I welcome thee once more:
But He, who was on land, at sea,
My Brother, too, in loving thee,
Although he loved more silently,
Sleeps by his native shore.

Ah! hopeful, hopeful was the day
When to that Ship he bent his way,
To govern and to guide:
His wish was gained: a little time
Would bring him back in manhood's prime
And free for life, these hills to climb;
With all his wants supplied.

And full of hope day followed day
While that stout Ship at anchor lay
Beside the shores of Wight;
The May had then made all things green;
And, floating there, in pomp serene,
That Ship was goodly to be seen,
His pride and his delight!

Yet then, when called ashore, he s...

The Muse who comes each morning
In rozy gauze is clad;
Her head is crowned with flowers,
Her eyes are clear and glad.

Upon her virgin bosom
Bloom lilies of white fire,
Her tender heart a rose is
Of delicate desire.

She is the gentle Goddess
Who rules the dreams of youth;
Her wonderful sweet stories
Are truer than the truth.

The Muse that comes at midnight,
When lamps of revel shine,
Her robe is laburnum,
All splashed with crimson wine.

Upon her head defiant,
She wears a vine-leaf crown,
And on her naked shoulders,
Her hair is hanging down.

And she at times is paler,
And paler than the dead
But O her lips are burning,
And O her lips are red.

She lifts a brimming goblet,
She spills ...

The Earth moans in her sleep
Like an old mother
Whose sons have gone to the war,
Who weeps silently in her heart
Till dreams comfort her.

The Earth tosses
As if she would shake off humanity,
A burden too heavy to be borne,
And free of the pest of intolerable men,
Spin with woods and waters
Joyously in the clear heavens
In the beautiful cool rains,
Bearing gladly the dumb animals,
And sleep when the time comes
Glistening in the remains of sunlight
With marmoreal innocency.

Be comforted, old mother,
Whose sons have gone to the war;
And be assured, O Earth,
Of your burden of passionate men,
For without them who would dream the dreams
That encompass you with glory,
Who would gather your youth
And store it in the jar o...