Courage

Love bade me hope, and I obeyed;
Phyllis continued still unkind:
Then you may e'en despair, he said,
In vain I strive to change her mind.

Honour's got in, and keeps her heart,
Durst he but venture once abroad,
In my own right I'd take your part,
And show myself the mightier God.

This huffing Honour domineers
In breasts alone where he has place:
But if true generous Love appears,
The hector dares not show his face.

Let me still languish and complain,
Be most unhumanly denied:
I have some pleasure in my pain,
She can have none with all her pride.

I fall a sacrifice to Love,
She lives a wretch for Honour's sake;
Whose tyrant does most cruel prove,
The difference is not hard to make.

Consider real Honour then,

My lady walks her morning round,
My lady’s page her fleet greyhound,
My lady’s hair the fond winds stir,
And all the birds make songs for her.

Her thrushes sing in Rathburn bowers,
And Rathburn side is gay with flowers;
But ne’er like hers, in flower or bird,
Was beauty seen or music heard.

The distance of the stars is hers;
The least of all her worshippers,
The dust beneath her dainty heel,
She knows not that I see or feel.

Oh, proud and calm! she cannot know
Where’er she goes with her I go;
Oh, cold and fair! she cannot guess
I kneel to share her hound’s caress!

Gay knights beside her hunt and hawk,
I rob their ears of her sweet talk;
Her suitors come from east and west,
I steal her smiles from every guest.

U...

Thy face is far from this our war,
Our call and counter-cry,
I shall not find Thee quick and kind,
Nor know Thee till I die,
Enough for me in dreams to see
And touch Thy garments' hem:
Thy feet have trod so near to
God I may not follow them.
Through wantonness if men profess
They weary of Thy parts,
E'en let them die at blasphemy
And perish with their arts;
But we that love, but we that prove
Thine excellence august,
While we adore discover more
Thee perfect, wise, and just.
Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirred
Beyond his belly-need,
What is is Thine of fair design
In thought and craft and deed;
Each stroke aright of toil and fight,
That was and that shall be,
And hope too high, wherefore we die,
Has birth and worth in Thee...

Amidst applauding cheers I won a prize.
A cynic watched me, with ironic eyes;
An open foe, in open hatred, sneered;
I cared for neither.    Then my friend appeared.
Eager, I listened for his glad 'Well done.'
But sudden shadow seemed to shroud my sun.
He praised me:    yet each slow, unwilling word
Forced from its sheath base Envy's hidden sword,
Two-edged, it wounded me; but, worst of all,
It thrust my friend down from his pedestal,
And showed him as he was - so small, so small.

Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies
    Behold the Spirit of the musky South,
A creole with still-burning, languid eyes,
    Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth:
    Swathed in spun gauze is she,
From fibres of her own anana tree.


Within these sumptuous woods she lies at ease,
    By rich night-breezes, dewy cool, caressed:
'Twixt cypresses and slim palmetto trees,
    Like to the golden oriole's hanging nest,
    Her airy hammock swings,
And through the dark her mocking-bird yet sings.


How beautiful she is!    A tulip-wreath
    Twines round her shadowy, free-floating hair:
Young, weary, passionate, and sad as death,
    Dark visions haunt for her the vacant air,
    While movelessly she lies
With lithe, lax, fo...

    How long, and yet how long,
Our leaders will we hail from over seas,
Master and kings from feudal monarchies,
    And mock their ancient song
With echoes weak of foreign melodies?


    That distant isle mist-wreathed,
Mantled in unimaginable green,
Too long hath been our mistress and our queen.
    Our fathers have bequeathed
Too deep a love for her, our hearts within.


    She made the whole world ring
With the brave exploits of her children strong,
And with the matchless music of her song.
    Too late, too late we cling
To alien legends, and their strains prolong.


    This fresh young world I see,
With heroes, cities, legends of her own;
With a new race of men, and overblown
    By winds from sea to sea,
...

    Oh! why should sorrow wound the heart,
        And rob the soul of rest?
    Why is misfortune's bitter dart
        Allowed to pierce the breast?

    We dare not ask; 'tis heaven's decree,
        While faring here below,
    Man's bark is tossed upon the sea
        Of trouble, grief and woe.

    But Mercy holdeth forth a light
        Upon the waves to shine,
    And cheer him in the darkest night, -
        The star of Hope divine.

    Enabled thus, he looks before,
        And sees, Oh! joyful sight!
    The waves subside, the storm is o'er,
        The sky is clear and bright.

    What comfort 'tis when cares annoy
        To know they are from One
    Whose hand dispenses peace and joy
        As well as grief ...

When we had passed the threshold of the gate
(Which the soul's ill affection doth disuse,
Making the crooked seem the straighter path),
I heard its closing sound. Had mine eyes turn'd,
For that offence what plea might have avail'd?

We mounted up the riven rock, that wound
On either side alternate, as the wave
Flies and advances. "Here some little art
Behooves us," said my leader, "that our steps
Observe the varying flexure of the path."

Thus we so slowly sped, that with cleft orb
The moon once more o'erhangs her wat'ry couch,
Ere we that strait have threaded. But when free
We came and open, where the mount above
One solid mass retires, I spent, with toil,
And both, uncertain of the way, we stood,
Upon a plain more lonesome, than the roads
That...

    When we were children, long ago,
    And crept to bed at close of day,
    With backward glance and footstep slow,
    Though all aweary with our play,
    Do you remember how the room -
    The little room with window deep -
    Would fill with shadows and with gloom,
    And fright us so we could not sleep?

    For O! the things we see at night -
    The dragons grim, the goblins tall,
    And, worst of all, the ghosts in white
    That range themselves along the wall!

    We could but cover up our head,
    And listen to our heart's wild beat -
    Such dreadful things about our bed,
    And no protection save a sheet!
    Then slept, and woke quite unafraid.
    The sun was shining, and we found
    Our shadows and our ghosts all ...

Heart, my heart, thou hast found thy home!
From gloom and sorrow thou hast come forth,
Thou who wast foolish, and sought to roam
'Neath the cruel stars of the frozen North.

Thou hast returned to thy dear delights;
The golden glow of the quivering days,
The silver silence of tropical nights,
No more to wander in alien ways.

Here, each star is a well-loved friend;
To me and my heart at the journey's end.

These are my people, and this my land,
I hear the pulse of her secret soul.
This is the life that I understand,
Savage and simple and sane and whole.

Washed in the light of a clear fierce sun, -
Heart, my heart, the journey is done.

See! the painted piece of the skies,
Where the rose-hued opal of sunset lies.
Hear the pass...

The sea of the years that endure not
Whose tide shall endure till we die
And know what the seasons assure not,
If death be or life be a lie,
Sways hither the spirit and thither,
A waif in the swing of the sea
Whose wrecks are of memories that wither
As leaves of a tree.
We hear not and hail not with greeting
The sound of the wings of the years,
The storm of the sound of them beating,
That none till it pass from him hears:
But tempest nor calm can imperil
The treasures that fade not or fly;
Change bids them not change and be sterile,
Death bids them not die.
Hearts plighted in youth to the royal
High service of hope and of song,
Sealed fast for endurance as loyal,
And proved of the years as they throng,
Conceive not, believe not, and fear no...

I

With nodding plumes, and lightly drest
Like foresters in leaf-green vest,
The Helvetian Mountaineers, on ground
For Tell's dread archery renowned,
Before the target stood, to claim
The guerdon of the steadiest aim.
Loud was the rifle-gun's report
A startling thunder quick and short!
But, flying through the heights around,
Echo prolonged a tell-tale sound
Of hearts and hands alike "prepared
The treasures they enjoy to guard!"
And, if there be a favoured hour
When Heroes are allowed to quit
The tomb, and on the clouds to sit
With tutelary power,
On their Descendants shedding grace
This was the hour, and that the place.

II

But Truth inspired the Bards of old
When of an iron age they told,
Which to unequal laws gav...

    All worthies are not sung in song.
        That live their lives and do their deeds
        Where wounded nature writhes and bleeds
    Beneath the savage blows of wrong;
    From humble duties tender grown,
    The truest heroes are unknown.

    The heart that toils where none may know
        And uncomplaining conquers care,
        To save his loved ones or to spare
    His fellows from the pangs of woe,
    Is more the hero than who shields
    His country on the bleeding fields.

    He claims no praises for his love,
        He seeks no tribute for his worth,
        But sows the desert hearts of earth
    With blossoms from the vales above;
    And in their sunshine warm and bright
    He holds these duties as his right.

 ...

Muse—hide his name of whom I sing,
Lest his surviving house thou bring
For his sake into scorn,
Nor speak the school from which he drew
The much or little that he knew,
Nor place where he was born.


That such a man once was, may seem
Worthy of record (if the theme
Perchance may credit win)
For proof to man, what man may prove,
If grace depart, and demons move
The source of guilt within.


This man (for since the howling wild
Disclaims him, man he must be styled)
Wanted no good below,
Gentle he was, if gentle birth
Could make him such, and he had worth,
If wealth can worth bestow.


In social talk and ready jest,
He shone superior at the feast,
And qualities of mind,
Illustrious in the eyes of those
W...

There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace!    That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everla...

Though dead the flower,
That, from her tower,
Love flung you in some perfect hour:
Though quenched the light,
That, on the height,
Faith built, a beacon in the fight:
Though gone the star,
That, seen afar,
Hope lit to guide you through the war:
Yet draw your sword,
And shout your word,
And plunge into the battling horde!
Give Fate the lie!
And, live or die,
Yours, yours shall be the victory!

Slowly the mist o'er the meadow was creeping,
Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun,
When from his couch, while his children were sleeping,
Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun.
Waving her golden veil
Over the silent dale,
Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire;
Hushed was his parting sigh,
While from his noble eye
Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire.

On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing
Calmly the first-born of glory have met;
Hark! the death-volley around them is ringing!
Look! with their life-blood the young grass is wet
Faint is the feeble breath,
Murmuring low in death,
"Tell to our sons how their fathers have died;"
Nerveless the iron hand,
Raised for its native land,
Lies by the weapon that ...

I have a vague remembrance
    Of a story, that is told
In some ancient Spanish legend
    Or chronicle of old.

It was when brave King Sanchez
    Was before Zamora slain,
And his great besieging army
    Lay encamped upon the plain.

Don Diego de Ordonez
    Sallied forth in front of all,
And shouted loud his challenge
    To the warders on the wall.

All the people of Zamora,
    Both the born and the unborn,
As traitors did he challenge
    With taunting words of scorn.

The living, in their houses,
    And in their graves, the dead!
And the waters of their rivers,
    And their wine, and oil, and bread!

There is a greater army,
    That besets us round with strife,
A starving, numberless army,
 ...