Courage

Time has made conquest of so many things
That once were mine.    Swift-footed, eager youth
That ran to meet the years; bold brigand health,
That broke all laws of reason unafraid,
And laughed at talk of punishment.

Close ties of blood and friendship, joy of life,
Which reads its music in the major key
And will not listen to a minor strain -
These things and many more are spoils of time.

Yet as a conqueror who only storms
The outposts of a town, and finds the fort
Too strong to be assailed, so time retreats
And knows his impotence.    He cannot take

My three great jewels from the crown of life:
Love, sympathy, and faith; and year on year
He sees them grow in lustre and in worth,
And glowers by me, plucking at his beard,
And dragging, as h...

    Auspicious poet, wert thou not my friend,
    How could I envy, what I must commend!
    But since 'tis nature's law, in love and wit,
    That youth should reign, and withering age submit,
    With less regret those laurels I resign,
    Which, dying on my brows, revive on thine.
    With better grace an ancient chief may yield
    The long-contended honours of the field,
    Than venture all his fortune at a cast,
    And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.
    Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,
    Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they rise:
    Old monarchs, though successful, still in doubt,
    Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout.
    Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age
    Can best, if any can, support the stage;
    Which so...

Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon,
Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed,
Yet I go singing through that land oppressed
As one that singeth through the flowers of June.

No more, with forest-fingers crawling free
O'er dark flint wall that seems a wall of eyes,
Shall evil break my soul with mysteries
Of some world-poison maddening bush and tree.

No more shall leering ghosts of pimp and king
With bloody secrets veiled before me stand.
Last night I held all evil in my hand
Closed: and behold it was a little thing.

I broke the infernal gates and looked on him
Who fronts the strong creation with a curse;
Even the god of a lost universe,
Smiling above his hideous cherubim.

And pierced far down in his soul's crypt unri...

On these green banks, where falls too soon
The shade of Autumn's afternoon,
The south wind blowing soft and sweet,
The water gliding at nay feet,
The distant northern range uplit
By the slant sunshine over it,
With changes of the mountain mist
From tender blush to amethyst,
The valley's stretch of shade and gleam
Fair as in Mirza's Bagdad dream,
With glad young faces smiling near
And merry voices in my ear,
I sit, methinks, as Hafiz might
In Iran's Garden of Delight.
For Persian roses blushing red,
Aster and gentian bloom instead;
For Shiraz wine, this mountain air;
For feast, the blueberries which I share
With one who proffers with stained hands
Her gleanings from yon pasture lands,
Wild fruit that art and culture spoil,
The harvest o...

For a while the salt brine leaves me
O'er my terraced rocks to fall,
And my broad swift-gliding waters
Olden memories recall.

Ere the tallest pines were seedlings
With my life-stream these were blent;
As a father's words, like arrows
Straight to children's hearts are sent,

So my currents speeding downwards,
Ever passing, sing the same
Story of the days remembered,
When the stranger people came.

Men of mighty limbs and voices,
Bearing shining shields and knives,
Painted gleamed their hair like evening,
When the sun in ocean dives.

Blue their eyes and tall their stature,
Huge as Indian shadows seen
When the sun through mists of morning
Casts them o'er a clear lake's sheen.

From before the great Pale-faces
Fl...

Come, Poet, come!
A thousand labourers ply their task,
And what it tends to scarcely ask,
And trembling thinkers on the brink
Shiver, and know not how to think.
To tell the purport of their pain,
And what our silly joys contain;
In lasting lineaments pourtray
The substance of the shadowy day;
Our real and inner deeds rehearse,
And make our meaning clear in verse:
Come, Poet, come! for but in vain
We do the work or feel the pain,
And gather up the seeming gain,
Unless before the end thou come
To take, ere they are lost, their sum.

Come, Poet, come!
To give an utterance to the dumb,
And make vain babblers silent, come;
A thousand dupes point here and there,
Bewildered by the show and glare;
And wise men half have learned to doubt

And I have thought of youth which strains
Nearer its God to rise, -
What were ambition and its pains
Were life a cowardice!

The grander souls that rose above
Thought's noblest heights to tread,
Found their endeavor in their love,
And truth behind the dead.

A secret glory in the tomb,
A night that dawns in light,
An intense presence veiled with gloom,
And not an endless night....

Nepenthe of this struggling world,
Thou who dost stay mad Care
When her fury's scourge above is curled
And we see her writhing hair!

The splendor of the kindling day,
The splendor of the setting sun,
These move my soul to wend its way,
And have done
With all we grasp and toil amongst and say.

The paling roses of a cloud,
The fading bow that arches space,
These woo my fancy toward my shroud;
Toward the place
Of faces veiled, and heads discrowned and bowed.

The nation of the awful stars,
The wandering star whose blaze is brief,
These make me beat against the bars
Of my grief;
My tedious grief, twin to the life it mars.

O fretted heart tossed to and fro,
So fain to flee, so fain to rest!
All glories that are high or low,
East or west,
Grow dim to thee who art so fain to go.

A Famous man is Robin Hood,
The English ballad-singer's joy!
And Scotland has a thief as good,
An outlaw of as daring mood;
She has her brave ROB ROY!
Then clear the weeds from off his Grave,
And let us chant a passing stave,
In honour of that Hero brave!

Heaven gave Rob Roy a dauntless heart
And wondrous length and strength of arm:
Nor craved he more to quell his foes,
Or keep his friends from harm.

Yet was Rob Roy as wise as brave;
Forgive me if the phrase be strong;
A Poet worthy of Rob Roy
Must scorn a timid song.

Say, then, that he was 'wise' as brave;
As wise in thought as bold in deed:
For in the principles of things
'He' sought his moral creed.

Said generous Rob, "What need of books?
Burn all the statute...

The sin was mine; I did not understand.
So now is music prisoned in her cave,
Save where some ebbing desultory wave
Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.
And in the withered hollow of this land
Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave,
That hardly can the leaden willow crave
One silver blossom from keen Winter's hand.

But who is this who cometh by the shore?
(Nay, love, look up and wonder!) Who is this
Who cometh in dyed garments from the South?
It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall kiss
The yet unravished roses of thy mouth,
And I shall weep and worship, as before.

Stand still, my soul, in the silent dark
I would question thee,
Alone in the shadow drear and stark
With God and me!

What, my soul, was thy errand here?
Was it mirth or ease,
Or heaping up dust from year to year?
"Nay, none of these!"

Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight
Whose eye looks still
And steadily on thee through the night
"To do His will!"

What hast thou done, O soul of mine,
That thou tremblest so?
Hast thou wrought His task, and kept the line
He bade thee go?

Aha! thou tremblest! well I see
Thou 'rt craven grown.
Is it so hard with God and me
To stand alone?

Summon thy sunshine bravery back,
O wretched sprite!
Let me hear thy voice through this deep and black
Abysmal night.

"The winter wind is loud and wild,
Come close to me, my darling child;
Forsake thy books, and mateless play;
And, while the night is gathering gray,
We'll talk its pensive hours away;

"Ierne, round our sheltered hall
November's gusts unheeded call;
Not one faint breath can enter here
Enough to wave my daughter's hair,
And I am glad to watch the blaze
Glance from her eyes, with mimic rays;
To feel her cheek, so softly pressed,
In happy quiet on my breast,

"But, yet, even this tranquillity
Brings bitter, restless thoughts to me;
And, in the red fire's cheerful glow,
I think of deep glens, blocked with snow;
I dream of moor, and misty hill,
Where evening closes dark and chill;
For, lone, among the mountains cold,
Lie those that I h...

To roll the rock you fought
takes your courage, Sisyphus!
No matter what effort from us,
Art is long, and Time is short.

Far from the grave of celebrity,
my heart, like a muffled drum,
taps out its funereal thrum
towards some lonely cemetery.

Many a long-buried gem
sleeps in shadowy oblivion
far from pickaxes and drills:

in profound solitude set,
many a flower, with regret,
its sweet perfume spills.

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 serves
The one great aim.
        Why, even Death stands still,
And waits an hour sometimes for such a will.

Well speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast!
Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art,
If, with dry eye, and cold, unloving heart,
Thou tread'st the solemn Pantheon of the Past,
By the great Future's dazzling hope made blind
To all the beauty, power, and truth behind.
Not without reverent awe shouldst thou put by
The cypress branches and the amaranth blooms,
Where, with clasped hands of prayer, upon their tombs
The effigies of old confessors lie,
God's witnesses; the voices of His will,
Heard in the slow march of the centuries still!
Such were the men at whose rebuking frown,
Dark with God's wrath, the tyrant's knee went down;
Such from the terrors of the guilty drew
The vassal's freedom and the poor man's due.
St. Anselm (may he rest forevermore
In Heaven's sw...

I 'm ashamed, - that 's the fact, - it 's a pitiful case, -
Won't any kind classmate get up in my place?
Just remember how often I've risen before, -
I blush as I straighten my legs on the floor!

There are stories, once pleasing, too many times told, -
There are beauties once charming, too fearfully old, -
There are voices we've heard till we know them so well,
Though they talked for an hour they'd have nothing to tell.

Yet, Classmates! Friends! Brothers! Dear blessed old boys!
Made one by a lifetime of sorrows and joys,
What lips have such sounds as the poorest of these,
Though honeyed, like Plato's, by musical bees?

What voice is so sweet and what greeting so dear
As the simple, warm welcome that waits for us here?
The love of our boyhood still breat...

Some have won a wild delight,
By daring wilder sorrow;
Could I gain thy love to-night,
I'd hazard death to-morrow.

Could the battle-struggle earn
One kind glance from thine eye,
How this withering heart would burn,
The heady fight to try!

Welcome nights of broken sleep,
And days of carnage cold,
Could I deem that thou wouldst weep
To hear my perils told.

Tell me, if with wandering bands
I roam full far away,
Wilt thou to those distant lands
In spirit ever stray?

Wild, long, a trumpet sounds afar;
Bid me, bid me go
Where Seik and Briton meet in war,
On Indian Sutlej's flow.

Blood has dyed the Sutlej's waves
With scarlet stain, I know;
Indus' borders yawn with graves,
Yet, command me go!

Troy Town is covered up with weeds,
The rabbits and the pismires brood
On broken gold, and shards, and beads
Where Priam's ancient palace stood.

The floors of many a gallant house
Are matted with the roots of grass;
The glow-worm and the nimble mouse
Among her ruins flit and pass.

And there, in orts of blackened bone,
The widowed Trojan beauties lie,
And Simois babbles over stone
And waps and gurgles to the sky.

Once there were merry days in Troy,
Her chimneys smoked with cooking meals,
The passing chariots did annoy
The sunning housewives at their wheels.

And many a lovely Trojan maid
Set Trojan lads to lovely things;
The game of life was nobly played,
They played the game like Queens and Kings.

So that, when ...