Courage

The greatest glory consists, not in never falling, but in getting up every time you fall. - CONFUCIUS.


The raging force of passion's storm,
Say who can check at will.
Or cope with sin, in ev'ry form,
With ever conquering skill?

How oft we've tried, and hop'd and pray'd
To conquer in the right;
But still, how oft our hearts, dismay'd,
Have fail'd amid the fight.

But still we fought the wrong we loath'd,
And though we fought in vain,
Our wills in fleshly weakness cloth'd,
Would try the fight again.

And He, I apprehend, who sees,
And knows our struggles here.
Will lead us onward, by degrees,
To triumph, though we fear.

And even tho' we're never quit
Of these sharp earthly thorns,
In black despair we'll never sit,...

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;
All things give way before it, soon or late.
    What obstacle can stay the mighty force
    Of the sea-seeking river in its course,
Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?

Each well-born soul must win what it deserves.
Let the fool prate of luck.    The fortunate
    Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves,
    Whose slightest action or inaction serve.
The one great aim.
        Why, even Death stands still,
And waits an hour sometimes for such a will.

We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.

The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king.

No Muse will I invoke; for she is fled!
Lo! where she sits, breathing, yet all but dead.
She loved the heavens of old, she thought them fair;
And dream'd of Gods in Tempe's golden air.
For her the wind had voice, the sea its cry;
She deem'd heroic Greece could never die.
Breathless was she, to think what nymphs might play
In clear green depths, deep-shaded from the day;
She thought the dim and inarticulate god
Was beautiful, nor knew she man a sod;
But hoped what seem'd might not be all untrue,
And feared to look beyond the eternal blue.
But now the heavens are bared of dreams divine.
Still murmurs she, like Autumn, This was mine!
How should she face the ghastly, jarring Truth,
That questions all, and tramples without ruth?
And still she clings to Ida o...

I
FATHER AND CHILD
She hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names;
And thereupon replies
That his hair is beautiful,
Cold as the March wind his eyes.

II
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS MADE

IF I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.
What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I'd have him love the thing that was
Before the world wa...

Bear him, comrades, to his grave;
Never over one more brave
Shall the prairie grasses weep,
In the ages yet to come,
When the millions in our room,
What we sow in tears, shall reap.
Bear him up the icy hill,
With the Kansas, frozen still
As his noble heart, below,
And the land he came to till
With a freeman's thews and will,
And his poor hut roofed with snow!

One more look of that dead face,
Of his murder's ghastly trace!
One more kiss, O widowed one!
Lay your left hands on his brow,
Lift you right hands up and vow
That his work shall yet be done.

Patience, friends! The eye of God
Every path by Murder trod
Watches, lidless, day and night;
And the dead man in his shroud,
And his widow weeping loud,
And our hearts, ...

Some of my friends (for friends I must suppose
All, who, not daring to appear my foes,
Feign great good will, and, not more full of spite
Than full of craft, under false colours fight),
Some of my friends (so lavishly I print),
As more in sorrow than in anger, hint
(Though that indeed will scarce admit a doubt)
That I shall run my stock of genius out,
My no great stock, and, publishing so fast,
Must needs become a bankrupt at the last.
'The husbandman, to spare a thankful soil,
Which, rich in disposition, pays his toil
More than a hundredfold, which swells his store
E'en to his wish, and makes his barns run o'er,
By long Experience taught, who teaches best,
Foregoes his hopes a while, and gives it rest:
The land, allow'd its losses to repair,
Refresh'd, a...

As I gird on for fighting
My sword upon my thigh,
I think on old ill fortunes
Of better men than I.

Think I, the round world over,
What golden lads are low
With hurts not mine to mourn for
And shames I shall not know.

What evil luck soever
For me remains in store,
‘Tis sure much finer fellows
Have fared much worse before.

So here are things to think on
That ought to make me brave,
As I strap on for fighting
My sword that will not save.

The yeoman lays aside his soil-stained smock,
And from his herd selects a trusty steed,
And sallies forth to help in hour of need;
Nor dreads the battle's shock.

The artisan from mine, or shop, or store,
Responds at duty's call without delay,
Nor stops to ask, "What will my nation pay?"
It calls--what needs he more?

The man of law--the herald of the cross--
The painter, skilled--he of the healing art--
The man of trade--come each with loyal heart,
Nor calculates his loss.

But brave as these are those of noble birth;
Genteel in manner, but with athlete frames,
They do full honor to their ancient names,
And prove by deeds their worth.

Palatial homes have they and wealth untold;
Nor need to labor, and no cause for fret,
But deeds...

In poisonous dens, where traitors hide
Like bats that fear the day,
While all the land our charters claim
Is sweating blood and breathing flame,
Dead to their country's woe and shame,
The recreants whisper STAY!

In peaceful homes, where patriot fires
On Love's own altars glow,
The mother hides her trembling fear,
The wife, the sister, checks a tear,
To breathe the parting word of cheer,
Soldier of Freedom, Go!

In halls where Luxury lies at ease,
And Mammon keeps his state,
Where flatterers fawn and menials crouch,
The dreamer, startled from his couch,
Wrings a few counters from his pouch,
And murmurs faintly WAIT!

In weary camps, on trampled plains
That ring with fife and drum,
The battling host, whose harness gleams
...

        'Mong silver hills of Nevada
        There is many a wild bravado,
        Who oft indulge in lawless vice,
        And there are pearls of great price.

        Rough hearts, but true at the core,
        There is the genuine silver ore,
        But it needs skill of the refiner
        To find pure gems in the miner.

        Far from their home two children stray,
        Among the mountains far away,
        The eldest of these travellers bold,
        Jack Smith he was but six years old.

        So far poor children went abroad,
        That both at last they lost their road,
        But their good dog the trusty Rover,
        By scent and search doth them discover.

        Their friends they search for them in vain,
  ...

I am afraid to think about my death,
When it shall be, and whether in great pain
I shall rise up and fight the air for breath
Or calmly wait the bursting of my brain.

I am no coward who could seek in fear
A folklore solace or sweet Indian tales:
I know dead men are deaf and cannot hear
The singing of a thousand nightingales.

I know dead men are blind and cannot see
The friend that shuts in horror their big eyes,
And they are witless--O I'd rather be
A living mouse than dead as a man dies.

Himself I read beneath the words he writes ...
I may come back and sing again. - RYAN.


I.

This Bard's to me a whole-souled man
In honesty and might,
For when he sees Wrong in the van
He leaps like any Knight
To horse, and charging on the wrong
Smites it with the great sword of Song.


II.

Beneath the cassock of the Priest
There throbs another heart -
Another - but 'tis not the least -
Which in his Lays takes part,
So that 'mid clash of Swords and Spears
There is no lack of Pity's tears.


III.

This other heart is brave and soft,
As such hearts always are,
And plumes itself, a bird aloft,
When Morning's gates unbar -
Till high it soars above the sod
Bathed in the very light of God.<...

If this importunate heart trouble your peace
With words lighter than air,
Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease;
Crumple the rose in your hair;
And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say,
‘O Hearts of wind-blown flame!
‘O Winds, elder than changing of night and day,
‘That murmuring and longing came,
‘From marble cities loud with tabors of old
‘In dove-gray faery lands;
‘From battle banners fold upon purple fold,
‘Queens wrought with glimmering hands;
‘That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face
‘Above the wandering tide;
‘And lingered in the hidden desolate place,
‘Where the last Phoenix died
‘And wrapped the flames above his holy head;
‘And still murmur and long:
‘O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead
‘In a tumultuou...

Ere down yon blue Carpathian hills
The sun shall sink again,
Farewell to life and all its ills,
Farewell to cell and chain!

These prison shades are dark and cold,
But, darker far than they,
The shadow of a sorrow old
Is on my heart alway.

For since the day when Warkworth wood
Closed o'er my steed, and I,
An alien from my name and blood,
A weed cast out to die,

When, looking back in sunset light,
I saw her turret gleam,
And from its casement, far and white,
Her sign of farewell stream,

Like one who, from some desert shore,
Doth home's green isles descry,
And, vainly longing, gazes o'er
The waste of wave and sky;

So from the desert of my fate
I gaze across the past;
Forever on life's dial-plate
The...

 AN OLD STORY.


I.
It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.

II.
The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, “Good folk, mere noise repels
But give me your sun from yonder skies!”
They had answered, “And afterward, what else?”

III.
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
To give it my loving friends to keep.
Nought man could do, have I left undone:
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.

IV.
There’s nobody on the house-tops now
Just a palsied few at the windows set
For ...

Written among the ruins of the Sonnenberg.


Thou who within thyself dost not behold
Ruins as great as these, though not as old,
Can'st scarce through life have travelled many a year,
Or lack'st the spirit of a pilgrim here.
Youth hath its walls of strength, its towers of pride;
Love, its warm hearth-stones; Hope, its prospects wide;
Life's fortress in thee, held these one, and all,
And they have fallen to ruin, or shall fall.

    When in the Thracian dust uprooted lay,
    In ruin vast, the strength of Italy,
    And Fate had doomed Hesperia's valleys green,
    And Tiber's shores,
    The trampling of barbarian steeds to feel,
    And from the leafless groves,
    On which the Northern Bear looks down,
    Had called the Gothic hordes,
    That Rome's proud walls might fall before their swords;
    Exhausted, wet with brothers' blood,
    Alone sat Brutus, in the dismal night;
    Resolved on death, the gods implacable
    Of heaven and hell he chides,
    And smites the listless, drowsy air
    With his fierce cries of anger and despair.

    "O foolish virtue, empty mists,
    The realms of shadows, are thy schools,
    And at thy heels repentance follows fast.
  ...