Courage

The beaver cut his timber
With patient teeth that day,
The minks were fish-wards, and the crows
Surveyors of highway,

When Keezar sat on the hillside
Upon his cobbler’s form,
With a pan of coals on either hand
To keep his waxed-ends warm.

And there, in the golden weather,
He stitched and hammered and sung;
In the brook he moistened his leather,
In the pewter mug his tongue.

Well knew the tough old Teuton
Who brewed the stoutest ale,
And he paid the goodwife’s reckoning
In the coin of song and tale.

The songs they still are singing
Who dress the hills of vine,
The tales that haunt the Brocken
And whisper down the Rhine.

Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
The swift stream wound away,
Through birches and scar...

Sad-Hearted spirit of the solitudes,
Who comest through the ruin-wedded woods!
Gray-gowned with fog, gold-girdled with the gloom
Of tawny twilights; burdened with perfume
Of rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist;
And all the beauty of the fire-kissed
Cold forests crimsoning thy indolent way,
Odorous of death and drowsy with decay.
I think of thee as seated 'mid the showers
Of languid leaves that cover up the flowers,
The little flower-sisterhoods, whom June
Once gave wild sweetness to, as to a tune
A singer gives her sours wild melody,
Watching the squirrel store his granary.
Or, 'mid old orchards I have pictured thee:
Thy hair's profusion blown about thy back;
One lovely shoulder bathed with gypsy black;
Upon thy palm one nestling check, and sweet
...

A sight in camp in the day-break grey and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path near by the hospital
tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there, untended
lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket,
Grey and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious, I halt, and silent stand;
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest, the first,
just lift the blanket:
Who are you, elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-grey'd hair,
and flesh all sunken about the eyes?
Who are you, my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step--And who are you, my child and darling?
Who are you, sweet boy, with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third--a face n...

Fools may pine, and sots may swill,
Cynics gibe, and prophets rail,
Moralists may scourge and drill,
Preachers prose, and fainthearts quail.
Let them whine, or threat, or wail!
Till the touch of Circumstance
Down to darkness sink the scale,
Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

What if skies be wan and chill?
What if winds be harsh and stale?
Presently the east will thrill,
And the sad and shrunken sail,
Bellying with a kindly gale,
Bear you sunwards, while your chance
Sends you back the hopeful hail:-
'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.'

Idle shot or coming bill,
Hapless love or broken bail,
Gulp it (never chew your pill!),
And, if Burgundy should fail,
Try the humbler pot of ale!
Over all is heaven's expanse.
Gold's to fi...

I Swayed upon the gaudy stern
The butt end of a steering oar,
And everywhere that I could turn
Men ran upon the shore.

And though I would have hushed the crowd,
There was no mother’s son but said,
‘What is the figure in a shroud
Upon a gaudy bed?’

And fishes bubbling to the brim
Cried out upon that thing beneath,
It had such dignity of limb,
By the sweet name of Death.

Though I’d my finger on my lip,
What could I but take up the song?
And fish and crowd and gaudy ship
Cried out the whole night long,

Crying amid the glittering sea,
Naming it with ecstatic breath,
Because it had such dignity
By the sweet name of Death.

Hold my hand, little Sister, and nurse my head, whilst I try to remember the word,
What was it?--that the doctor says is now fairly established both in me and my bird.
C-O-N-con, with a con, S-T-A-N-stan, with a stan--No! That's Constantinople, that is
The capital of the country where rhubarb-and-magnesia comes from, and I wish they would keep it in that country, and not send it to this.
C-O-N-con--how my head swims! Now I've got it! C-O-N-V-A-L-E-S-C-E-N-C-E.
Convalescence! And that's what the doctor says is now fairly established both in my blackbird and me.
He says it means that you are better, and that you'll be well by and by.
And so the Sea-captain says, and he says we ought to be friends, because we're both convalescents--at least we're all three convalesc...

Thus pass the glories of the world!
He lies beneath the pall’s white folds:
His sword is sheathed, his pennon furled,
Him silence holds.

The pilgrim staff, the cockle shell,
The crown, the sceptre of his pride,
The simple flower from forest dell,
Heap at his side.

And add thereto the wild-heart lute
The voice of love and twilight song;
Those passioned strings though he is mute
Remember long.

And move not thence his evening book,
The sifted grains of calm and storm;
And bow before that dust-strewn nook
And silent form.

To-morrow hath no hope for him,
No clasp of friend, no grip of foe:
Remember, love, with eyes tear-dim,
We too must go.

The Lovers took within this ancient grove
Their last embrace; beside those crystal springs
The Hermit saw the Angel spread his wings
For instant flight; the Sage in yon alcove
Sate musing; on that hill the Bard would rove,
Not mute, where now the linnet only sings:
Thus everywhere to truth Tradition clings,
Or Fancy localises Powers we love.
Were only History licensed to take note
Of things gone by, her meagre monuments
Would ill suffice for persons and events:
There is an ampler page for man to quote,
A readier book of manifold contents,
Studied alike in palace and in cot.

One Morn as through Hyde Park we walk’d.
My friend and I, by chance we talk’d
Of Lessing’s famed Laocoön;
And after we awhile had gone
In Lessing’s track, and tried to see
What painting is, what poetry,
Diverging to another thought,
‘Ah,’ cries my friend, ‘but who hath taught
Why music and the other arts
Oftener perform aright their parts
Than poetry? why she, than they,
Fewer real successes can display?

‘For ’tis so, surely! Even in Greece
Where best the poet framed his piece,
Even in that Phoebus-guarded ground
Pausanias on his travels found
Good poems, if he look’d, more rare
(Though many) than good statues were,
For these, in truth, were everywhere!
Of bards full many a stroke divine
In Dante’s, Petrarch’s, Tasso’s line,
The ...

O mad with mirth are the birds to-day
    That over my head are winging.
There is nothing but glee in the roundelay
    That I hear them singing, singing.
On wings of light, up, out of sight -
    I watch them airily flying.
What do they know of the world below,
    And the hopes that are dying, dying?

The roses turn to the sun's warm sky,
    Their sweet lips red and tender;
Oh! life to them is a dream of bliss,
    Of love, and passion, and splendour.
What know they of the world to-day,
    Of hearts that are silently breaking;
Of the human breast, and its great unrest,
    And its pitiless aching, aching?

They send me out into Nature's heart
    For help to bear my sorrow,
Nothing of strength can she impart,
    No peace from her ...

I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once fair and stately palace,
Radiant palace, reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion,
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.

II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This, all this, was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.

III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.<...

Fair flower! that fall'n beneath the angry blast,
Which marks with wither'd sweets its fearful way,
I grieve to see thee on the low earth cast,
While beauty's trembling tints fade fast away.
But who is she, that from the mountain's head
Comes gaily on, cheering the child of earth?
The walks of woe bloom bright beneath her tread,
And Nature smiles with renovated mirth?
'Tis Health! She comes: and, hark! the vallies ring,
And, hark! the echoing hills repeat the sound:
She sheds the new-blown blossoms of the spring,
And all their fragrance floats her footsteps round.
And, hark! she whispers in the zephyr's voice,
Lift up thy head, fair floweret, and rejoice!

She stood in the open door,
She blessed them faint and low:
"I must go," she said, "must go
Away from the light of the sun,
Away from you, every one;
Must see your eyes no more,--
Your eyes, that love me so.

"I should not shudder thus,
Nor weep, nor be afraid.
Nor cling to you so dismayed,
Could I only pierce with ray eyes
Where the dark, dark shadow lies;
Where something hideous
Is hiding, perhaps," she said.

Then slowly she went from them,
Went down the staircase grim,
With trembling heart and limb;
Her footfalls echoed
In the silence vast and dead,
Like the notes of a requiem,
Not sung, but uttered.

For a little way and a black
She groped as grope the blind,
Then a sudden radiance shined,
And a visio...

Take these flowers which, purple waving,
On the ruin'd rampart grew,
Where, the sons of freedom braving,
Rome's imperial standards flew.

Warriors from the breach of danger
Pluck no longer laurels there;
They but yield the passing stranger
Wild-flower wreaths the Beauty's hair.

        A rake who had, by pleasure stuffing,
        Raked mind and body down to nothing,
        In wretched vacancy reclined,
        Enfeebled both in frame and mind.

        As pain and languor chose to bore him,
        A ghastly phantom rose before him:

        "My name is Care. Nor wealth nor power
        Can give the heart a cheerful hour
        Devoid of health - impressed by care.
        From pleasures fraught with pains, forbear."

        The phantom fled. The rake abstained,
        And part of fleeing health retained.
        Then, to reform, he took a wife,
        Resolved to live a sober life.

        Again the phantom stood before him,
        With jealousies and fears to bore him.
        Her smiles to others he re...

Go! obedient to my call,

Turn to profit thy young days,

Wiser make betimes thy breast

In Fate's balance as it sways,

Seldom is the cock at rest;
Thou must either mount, or fall,

Thou must either rule and win,

Or submissively give in,
Triumph, or else yield to clamour:
Be the anvil or the hammer.

And Simon Peter stood and warmed himself. John 18:25.


Peter, it was not outward cold
But inward chill thy bosom froze,
Made thee deny with falsehood bold
Thy Lord and Master to his foes.
When we find cheer at Satan's fires
The world is there to work us harm,
To deaden all our pure desires
With its deceitful lure and charm.

Peter, the voice of chanticleer
Fulfilled what Christ had prophesied;
And oh, that pitying look sincere
From him whom thou hadst just denied!
Thy burst of penitential grief!
Heaven those tears did surely send.
Tears give the burdened heart relief;
Dry anguish may its tendrils rend.

Sin soon will crucify our Lord,
Thy sin, and all the world's beside.
He gave himself, the Living Word,
Our shel...

            TO E.M. II.

Dear friend, you love the poet's song,
    And here is one for your regard.
    You know the "melancholy bard,"
Whose grief is wise as well as strong;

Already something understand
    For whom he mourns and what he sings,
    And how he wakes with golden strings
The echoes of "the silent land;"

How, restless, faint, and worn with grief,
    Yet loving all and hoping all,
    He gazes where the shadows fall,
And finds in darkness some relief;

And how he sends his cries across,
    His cries for him that comes no more,
    Till one might think that silent shore
Full of the burden of his loss;

And how there comes sublimer cheer--
    Not darkness solacing sad eyes,
    Not the wild joy of mournf...