Courage

[During an anti-saloon campaign, in central Illinois.]


    In the midst of the battle I turned,
    (For the thunders could flourish without me)
    And hid by a rose-hung wall,
    Forgetting the murder about me;
    And wrote, from my wound, on the stone,
    In mirth, half prayer, half play: -
    "Send me a picture book,
    Send me a song, to-day."

    I saw him there by the wall
    When I scarce had written the line,
    In the enemy's colors dressed
    And the serpent-standard of wine
    Writhing its withered length
    From his ghostly hands o'er the ground,
    And there by his shadowy breast
    The glorious poem I found.

    This was his world-old cry:
    Thus read the famous prayer:
    "Wine, wine, wine a...

I

The Sheep-boy whistled loud, and lo!
That instant, startled by the shock,
The Buzzard mounted from the rock
Deliberate and slow:
Lord of the air, he took his flight;
Oh! could he on that woeful night
Have lent his wing, my Brother dear,
For one poor moment's space to Thee,
And all who struggled with the Sea,
When safety was so near.

II

Thus in the weakness of my heart
I spoke (but let that pang be still)
When rising from the rock at will,
I saw the Bird depart.
And let me calmly bless the Power
That meets me in this unknown Flower.
Affecting type of him I mourn!
With calmness suffer and believe,
And grieve, and know that I must grieve,
Not cheerless, though forlorn.

III

Here did we stop; and he...

[One of the Bearers soliloquizes:]

. . . Room in your heart for him, O Mother Earth,
Who loved each flower and leaf that made you fair,
And sang your praise in verses manifold
And delicate, with here and there a line
From end to end in blossom like a bough
The May breathes on, so rich it was.    Some thought
The workmanship more costly than the thing
Moulded or carved, as in those ornaments
Found at Mycaene.    And yet Nature's self
Works in this wise; upon a blade of grass,
Or what small note she lends the woodland thrush,
Lavishing endless patience.    He was born
Artist, not artisan, which some few saw
And many dreamed not.    As he wrote no odes
When Croesus wedded or Maecenas died,
And gave no breath to civic feasts and shows,
He missed the gla...

1.
Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die,
Perchance were death indeed! - Constantia, turn!
In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,
Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn
Between thy lips, are laid to sleep;
Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet,
And from thy touch like fire doth leap.
Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet.
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!

2.
A breathless awe, like the swift change
Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers,
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,
Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven
By the enchantment of thy strain,
And on my shoulders wings are woven,
To follow its sublime career
Beyond ...

Hail, lovely morn! and thou, all-beauteous sea!
Sun-sparkling with the diamond's countless rays:
Thy look, how tranquil, one eternal calm,
Which seems to woo the troubled soul to peace!
Now, all is sunshine, and thy boundless breast
Scarce heaves; unruffled, all thy waves subside
(Light murmuring, like the baby sighs of rest)
Into a gentle ripple on the shore.

All hail, dear Woman! saving-ark of man,
His surest solace in this world of woe;
How cheering are thy smiles, which, like the breeze
Of health, play softly o'er the pallid cheek,
And turn its rigid markings to a smile.
England may well be proud of scenes like this;
The beaming Beauty which adorns the PIER!

Hung like a fairy fabric o'er the sea,
The graceful wonder of this wondrous age;
I...

I was a little lad, and the older boys called to me from the pier:
They called to me:    'Be a sport:    be a sport!    Leap in and swim!'
I leaped in and swam, though I had never been taught a stroke.
Then I was made a hero, and they all shouted:
    'Well done!    Well done,
Brave boy, you are a sport, a good sport!'
And I was very glad.

But now I wish I had learned to swim the right way,
    Or had never learned at all.
Now I regret that day,
    For it led to my fall.

I was a youth, and I heard the older men talking of the road to wealth;
They talked of bulls and bears, of buying on margins,
And they said, 'Be a sport, my boy, plunge in and win or lose it all!
It is the only way to fortune.'
So I plunged in and won; and the older men patted me on th...

These, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world but soon I pass the gates,
Now along the pond-side now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover them Beyond these I pass,)
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,
Alone I had thought yet soon a troop gathers around me,
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
They, the spirit...

Though bleak these woods and damp the ground
With fallen leaves so thickly strewn,
And cold the wind that wanders round
With wild and melancholy moan,

There is a friendly roof I know
Might shield me from the wintry blast;
There is a fire whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past.

And so, though still where'er I roam
Cold stranger glances meet my eye,
Though when my spirit sinks in woe
Unheeded swells the unbidden sigh,

Though solitude endured too long
Bids youthful joys too soon decay,
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue
And overclouds my noon of day,

When kindly thoughts that would have way
Flow back discouraged to my breast
I know there is, though far away
A home where heart and soul may rest.

War...

I wish this world and its green hills were mine,
But it is not; the wandering shepherd star
Is not more distant, gazing from afar
On the unreapèd pastures of the sea,
Than I am from the world, the world from me.
At night the stars on milky way that shine
Seem things one might possess, but this round green
Is for the cows that rest, these and the sheep:
To them the slopes and pastures offer sleep;
My sleep I draw from the far fields of blue,
Whence cold winds come and go among the few
Bright stars we see and many more unseen.

Birds sing on earth all day among the flowers,
Taking no thought of any other thing
But their own hearts, for out of them they sing:
Their songs are kindred to the blossom heads,
Faint as the petals which the blackthorn sheds,
A...

Non ha tanti animali il mar fra l' onde.

HE DESPAIRS OF ESCAPE FROM THE TORMENTS BY WHICH HE IS SURROUNDED.


    Nor Ocean holds such swarms amid his waves,
Not overhead, where circles the pale moon,
Were stars so numerous ever seen by night,
Nor dwell so many birds among the woods,
Nor plants so many clothe the field or hill,
As holds my tost heart busy thoughts each eve.

Each day I hope that this my latest eve
Shall part from my quick clay the sad salt waves,
And leave me in last sleep on some cold hill;
So many torments man beneath the moon
Ne'er bore as I have borne; this know the woods
Through which I wander lonely day and night.

For never have I had a tranquil night,
But ceaseless sighs instead from morn till eve,
Sinc...

Andrew Rykman’s dead and gone;
You can see his leaning slate
In the graveyard, and thereon
Read his name and date.

“Trust is truer than our fears,”
Runs the legend through the moss,
“Gain is not in added years,
Nor in death is loss.”

Still the feet that thither trod,
All the friendly eyes are dim;
Only Nature, now, and God
Have a care for him.

There the dews of quiet fall,
Singing birds and soft winds stray:
Shall the tender Heart of all
Be less kind than they?

What he was and what he is
They who ask may haply find,
If they read this prayer of his
Which he left behind.

.        .        .        .        .

Pardon, Lord, the lips that dare
Shape in words a mortal’s prayer!
Prayer, that, when...

Aristonoë, the fading shepherdess,
Gathers the young girls round her in a ring,
Teaching them wisdom of love,
What to say, how to dress,
How frown, how smile,
How suitors to their dancing feet to bring,
How in mere walking to beguile,
What words cunningly said in what a way
Will draw man's busy fancy astray,
All the alphabet, grammar and syntax of love.

The garden smells are sweet,
Daisies spring in the turf under the high-heeled feet,
Dense, dark banks of laurel grow
Behind the wavering row
Of golden, flaxen, black, brown, auburn heads,
Behind the light and shimmering dresses
Of these unreal, modern shepherdesses;
And gaudy flowers in formal patterned beds
Vary the dim long vistas of the park,
Far as the eye can see,
Till at the fore...

Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now we must pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?"
"Why, say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!' "
"My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak."
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
"What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
"Why, you shall say at break of day,
'Sail on! sail on! and on!' "
They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forge...

'Now did you mark a falcon,
    Sister dear, sister dear,
Flying toward my window
    In the morning cool and clear?
With jingling bells about her neck,
    But what beneath her wing?
It may have been a ribbon,
    Or it may have been a ring.'--
            'I marked a falcon swooping
                At the break of day;
            And for your love, my sister dove,
                I 'frayed the thief away.'--

'Or did you spy a ruddy hound,
    Sister fair and tall,
Went snuffing round my garden bound,
    Or crouched by my bower wall?
With a silken leash about his neck;
    But in his mouth may be
A chain of gold and silver links,
    Or a letter writ to me.'--
            'I heard a hound, highborn sister,
                Stoo...

I would have taken Golden Stars from the sky for your necklace,
I would have shaken rose-leaves for your rest from all the rose-trees.

But you had no need; the short sweet grass sufficed for your slumber,
And you took no heed of such trifles as gold or a necklace.

There is an hour, at twilight, too heavy with memory.
There is a flower that I fear, for your hair had its fragrance.

I would have squandered Youth for you, and its hope and its promise,
Before you wandered, careless, away from my useless passion.

But what is the use of my speech, since I know of no words to recall you?
I am praying that Time may teach, you, your Cruelty, me, Forgetfulness.

I.

Along Crane River's sunny slopes
Blew warm the winds of May,
And over Naumkeag's ancient oaks
The green outgrew the gray.

The grass was green on Rial-side,
The early birds at will
Waked up the violet in its dell,
The wind-flower on its hill.

"Where go you, in your Sunday coat,
Son Andrew, tell me, pray."
For striped perch in Wenham Lake
I go to fish to-day."

"Unharmed of thee in Wenham Lake
The mottled perch shall be
A blue-eyed witch sits on the bank
And weaves her net for thee.

"She weaves her golden hair; she sings
Her spell-song low and faint;
The wickedest witch in Salem jail
Is to that girl a saint."

"Nay, mother, hold thy cruel tongue;
God knows," the young man cried,
"He never ma...

O Lord, my best desire fulfil,
And help me to resign
Life, health, and comfort to thy will,
And make thy pleasure mine.


Why should I shrink at thy command,
Whose love forbids my fears?
Or tremble at the gracious hand
That wipes away my tears?


No, let me rather freely yield
What most I prize to thee;
Who never hast a good withheld,
Or wilt withhold, from me.


Thy favour, all my journey through,
Thou art engaged to grant;
What else I want, or think I do,
‘Tis better still to want.


Wisdom and mercy guide my way,
Shall I resist them both?
A poor blind creature of a day,
And crush’d before the moth!


But ah! my inward spirit cries,
Still bind me to thy sway;
Else the next cloud ...

Who can forget fair freedom's bird,
That has her genuine praises heard,
    Confirm'd by frequent proof?
The patriot stork is sure to share
The brave Batavian's generous care,
    While breeding on his roof,

In all her early, brightest, days,
When Holland won immortal praise
    Her Spanish tyrant's dread!
She play'd not her heroic part
With spirit, nobler than the heart,
    Of one mild bird she bred.

It was a female Stork, whose mind
Shew'd all the mother, bravely kind,
    In trial's fiercest hour;
This bird had blest her happy lot,
High-nested on a fisher's cot,
    As stedfast as a tower.

Her host, a man benignly mild,
Was happy in a darling child
    Who now had woman's air;
Her face intelligent and sweet,
...