Courage

When winds and seas do rage
And threaten to undo me,
Thou dost, their wrath assuage
If I but call unto Thee.

A mighty storm last night
Did seek my soul to swallow,
But by the peep of light
A gentle calm did follow.

What need I then despair,
Though ills stand round about me;
Since mischiefs neither dare
To bark or bite without Thee?

    The same old sprint in the morning, boys, to the same old din and smut;
    Chained all day to the same old desk, down in the same old rut;
    Posting the same old greasy books, catching the same old train:
    Oh, how will I manage to stick it all, if I ever get back again?

We've bidden good-bye to life in a cage, we're finished with pushing a pen;
They're pumping us full of bellicose rage, they're showing us how to be men.
We're only beginning to find ourselves; we're wonders of brawn and thew;
But when we go back to our Sissy jobs, - oh, what are we going to do?

For shoulders curved with the counter stoop will be carried erect and square;
And faces white from the office light will be bronzed by the open air;
And we'll walk with the stride of a new-born pride, wit...

Sing to Love--for, oh, 'twas he
    Who won the glorious day;
Strew the wreaths of victory
    Along the conqueror's way.
Yoke the Muses to his car,
    Let them sing each trophy won;
While his mother's joyous star
    Shall light the triumph on.

Hail to Love, to mighty Love,
    Let spirits sing around;
While the hill, the dale, and grove,
    With "mighty Love" resound;
Or, should a sigh of sorrow steal
    Amid the sounds thus echoed o'er,
'Twill but teach the god to feel
    His victories the more.

See his wings, like amethyst
    Of sunny Ind their hue;
Bright as when, by Psyche kist,
    They trembled thro' and thro'.
Flowers spring beneath his feet;
    Angel forms beside him run;
While unnumbered lips repeat

I seem to see a Shining One,
With eyes that gleam, now fierce, now tender,
Through Goggles that reflect the Sun
"With more than Oriental Splendor";
I see him sitting on a chest
Heavy with padlocks, bolts, and cording,
Where Untold Treasures hidden rest,
Treasures of Untold Yarns he's hoarding.
Oh, Rudyard, please unlock that chest!
With hope deferred we're growing hoary;
Or was it all an empty jest
Your saying, "That's another story"?

Before my window, in days of winter hoar
Huddled a mournful wood:
Smooth pillars of beech, domed chestnut, sycamore,
In stony sleep they stood:
But you, unhappy elm, the angry west
Had chosen from the rest,
Flung broken on your brothers' branches bare,
And left you leaning there
So dead that when the breath of winter cast
Wild snow upon the blast,
The other living branches, downward bowed,
Shook free their crystal shroud
And shed upon your blackened trunk beneath
Their livery of death....

On windless nights between the beechen bars
I watched cold stars
Throb whitely in the sky, and dreamily
Wondered if any life lay locked in thee:
If still the hidden sap secretly moved
As water in the icy winterbourne
Floweth unheard:
And half I ...

Safe in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence, --
Ah, what sagacity perished here!

Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.

Call me away; there's nothing here,
That wins my soul to stay;
Then let me leave this prospect drear,
And hasten far away.

To our beloved land I'll flee,
Our land of thought and soul,
Where I have roved so oft with thee,
Beyond the world's control.

I'll sit and watch those ancient trees,
Those Scotch firs dark and high;
I'll listen to the eerie breeze,
Among their branches sigh.

The glorious moon shines far above;
How soft her radiance falls,
On snowy heights, and rock, and grove;
And yonder palace walls!

Who stands beneath yon fir trees high?
A youth both slight and fair,
Whose bright and restless azure eye
Proclaims him known to care,
Though fair that brow, it is not smooth;
Though small those features, yet in...

The noon was shady, and soft airs
Swept Ouse’s silent tide,
When, ‘scaped from literary cares,
I wander’d on his side.


My spaniel, prettiest of his race,
And high in pedigree
(Two nymphs[1] adorn’d with every grace
That spaniel found for me),


Now wanton’d lost in flags and reeds,
Now starting into sight,
Pursued the swallow o’er the meads
With scarce a slower flight.


It was the time when Ouse display’d
His lilies newly blown;
Their beauties I intent survey’d,
And one I wish’d my own.


With cane extended far I sought
To steer it close to land;
But still the prize, though nearly caught,
Escaped my eager hand.


Beau mark’d my unsuccessful pains
With fix’d considerate fac...

I dread that street its haggard face
I have not seen for eight long years;
A mother’s curse is on the place,
(There’s blood, my reader, in her tears).
No child of man shall ever track,
Through filthy dust, the singer’s feet
A fierce old memory drags me back;
I hate its name I dread that street.

Upon the lap of green, sweet lands,
Whose months are like your English Mays,
I try to hide in Lethe’s sands
The bitter, old Bohemian days.
But sorrow speaks in singing leaf,
And trouble talketh in the tide;
The skirts of a stupendous grief
Are trailing ever at my side.

I will not say who suffered there,
’Tis best the name aloof to keep,
Because the world is very fair
Its light should sing the dark to sleep.
But, let me whisper, in that st...

Take, since you bade it should bear,
These, of the seed of your sowing,
Blossom or berry or weed.
Sweet though they be not, or fair,
That the dew of your word kept growing,
Sweet at least was the seed.

Men bring you love-offerings of tears,
And sorrow the kiss that assuages,
And slaves the hate-offering of wrongs,
And time the thanksgiving of years,
And years the thanksgiving of ages;
I bring you my handful of songs.

If a perfume be left, if a bloom,
Let it live till Italia be risen,
To be strewn in the dust of her car
When her voice shall awake from the tomb
England, and France from her prison,
Sisters, a star by a star.

I bring you the sword of a song,
The sword of my spirit's desire,
Feeble; but laid at your feet,
...

Pastor and Patriot! at whose bidding rise
These modest walls, amid a flock that need,
For one who comes to watch them and to feed,
A fixed Abode, keep down presageful sighs.
Threats, which the unthinking only can despise,
Perplex the Church; but be thou firm, be true
To thy first hope, and this good work pursue,
Poor as thou art. A welcome sacrifice
Dost Thou prepare, whose sign will be the smoke
Of thy new hearth; and sooner shall its wreaths,
Mounting while earth her morning incense breathes,
From wandering fiends of air receive a yoke,
And straightway cease to aspire, than God disdain
This humble tribute as ill-timed or vain.

I stand above the city's rush and din,
And gaze far down with calm and undimmed eyes,
To where the misty smoke wreath grey and dim
Above the myriad roofs and spires rise;

Still is my heart and vacant is my breath--
This lovely view is breath and life to me,
Why I could charm the icy soul of death
With such a sight as this I stand and see.

I hear no sound of labor's din or stir,
I feel no weight of worldly cares or fears,
Sweet song of birds, of wings the soothing whirr,
These sounds alone assail my listening ears.

Unwhipt of conscience here I stand alone,
The breezes humbly kiss my garment's hem;
I am a king--the whole world is my throne,
The blue grey sky my royal diadem.

I.

    While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
    And bar the doors wi' driving snaw,
        And hing us owre the ingle,
    I set me down to pass the time,
    And spin a verse or twa o' rhyme,
        In hamely westlin jingle.
    While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
        Ben to the chimla lug,
    I grudge a wee the great folks' gift,
        That live sae bien an' snug:
            I tent less and want less
                Their roomy fire-side;
            But hanker and canker
                To see their cursed pride.

II.

    It's hardly in a body's power
    To keep, at times, frae being sour,
        To see how things are shar'd;
    How best o' chiels are whiles in want.
    While coofs on countless thousands...

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!
If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!
If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed
By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world
Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;
If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge
Driven by invisible blows,
The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door i...

Hands and lit faces eddy to a line;
The dazed last minutes click; the clamour dies.
Beyond the great-swung arc o' the roof, divine,
Night, smoky-scarv'd, with thousand coloured eyes

Glares the imperious mystery of the way.
Thirsty for dark, you feel the long-limbed train
Throb, stretch, thrill motion, slide, pull out and sway,
Strain for the far, pause, draw to strength again. . . .

As a man, caught by some great hour, will rise,
Slow-limbed, to meet the light or find his love;
And, breathing long, with staring sightless eyes,
Hands out, head back, agape and silent, move

Sure as a flood, smooth as a vast wind blowing;
And, gathering power and purpose as he goes,
Unstumbling, unreluctant, strong, unknowing,
Borne by a will not his, that lifts, that...

I care not what the sailors say:
All those dreadful thunder-stones,
All that storm that blots the day
Can but show that Heaven yawns;
Great Europa played the fool
That changed a lover for a bull.
Fol de rol, fol de rol.

To round that shell's elaborate whorl,
Adorning every secret track
With the delicate mother-of-pearl,
Made the joints of Heaven crack:
So never hang your heart upon
A roaring, ranting journeyman.
Fol de rol, fol de rol.

There's no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part:
There's such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one's heart:

There's such a thing as dwelling
On the thought ourselves have nursed,
And with scorn and courage telling
The world to do its worst.

We'll not let its follies grieve us,
We'll just take them as they come;
And then every day will leave us
A merry laugh for home.

When we've left each friend and brother,
When we're parted wide and far,
We will think of one another,
As even better than we are.

Every glorious sight above us,
Every pleasant sight beneath,
We'll connect with those that love us,
Whom we truly love till death!

In the evening, when we're sitting
By the fire, perchance alone,

Above, below, in sky and sod,
In leaf and spar, in star and man,
Well might the wise Athenian scan
The geometric signs of God,
The measured order of His plan.

And India's mystics sang aright
Of the One Life pervading all,
One Being's tidal rise and fall
In soul and form, in sound and sight,
Eternal outflow and recall.

God is: and man in guilt and fear
The central fact of Nature owns;
Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones,
And darkly dreams the ghastly smear
Of blood appeases and atones.

Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within
The human heart the secret lies
Of all the hideous deities;
And, painted on a ground of sin,
The fabled gods of torment rise!

And what is He? The ripe grain nods,
The sweet dews fall, the swe...