Courage

Eternal Power, of earth and air!
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound.

If e'er thine ear in mercy bent,
When wretched mortals cried to Thee,
And if, indeed, Thy Son was sent,
To save lost sinners such as me:

Then hear me now, while, kneeling here,
I lift to thee my heart and eye,
And all my soul ascends in prayer,
Oh, give me, give me Faith! I cry.

Without some glimmering in my heart,
I could not raise this fervent prayer;
But, oh! a stronger light impart,
And in Thy mercy fix it there.

While Faith is with me, I am blest;
It turns my darkest night to day;
But while I clasp it to my breast,
I often feel it slide away.

Then, cold and dark, my spirit ...

I

Thy functions are ethereal,
As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind,
Organ of vision! And a Spirit aerial
Informs the cell of Hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;
Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers for the heart, their slave;
And shrieks, that revel in abuse
Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose
The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair;
Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,
And requiems answered by the pulse that beats
Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

II

The headlong streams and fountains
Serve Thee, invisible Spirit, with untired powers;
Cheering the wakeful tent o...

Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably,
Neat-footed and weak-fingered:    in his face -
Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race,
Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea,
The brown eyes radiant with vivacity -
There shines a brilliant and romantic grace,
A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace
Of passion and impudence and energy.
Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck,
Most vain, most generous, sternly critical,
Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist:
A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck,
Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all,
And something of the Shorter-Catechist.

The punctual tide draws up the bay,
With ripple of wave and hiss of spray,
And the great red flower of the light-house tower
Blooms on the headland far away.

Petal by petal its fiery rose
Out of the darkness buds and grows;
A dazzling shape on the dim, far cape,
A beckoning shape as it comes and goes.

A moment of bloom, and then it dies
On the windy cliff 'twixt the sea and skies.
The fog laughs low to see it go,
And the white waves watch it with cruel eyes.

Then suddenly out of the mist-cloud dun,
As touched and wooed by unseen sun,
Again into sight bursts the rose of light
And opens its petals one by one.

Ah, the storm may be wild and the sea be strong,
And man is weak and the darkness long,
But while blossoms the flower on ...

1819-1891

Thou shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir
That filled our groves with music till the day
Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire,
And evening listened for thy lingering lay.

But thou hast found thy voice in realms afar
Where strains celestial blend their notes with thine;
Some cloudless sphere beneath a happier star
Welcomes the bright-winged spirit we resign.

How Nature mourns thee in the still retreat
Where passed in peace thy love-enchanted hours!
Where shall she find an eye like thine to greet
Spring's earliest footprints on her opening flowers?

Have the pale wayside weeds no fond regret
For him who read the secrets they enfold?
Shall the proud spangles of the field forget
The verse that lent new glory to th...

        God had called us, and we came;
            Our loved Earth to ashes left;
        Heaven was a neighbor's house,
            Open to us, bereft.

        Gay the lights of Heaven showed,
            And 'twas God who walked ahead;
        Yet I wept along the road,
            Wanting my own house instead.

        Wept unseen, unheeded cried,
            "All you things my eyes have kissed,
        Fare you well!    We meet no more,
            Lovely, lovely tattered mist!

        Weary wings that rise and fall
            All day long above the fire!"--
        Red with heat was every wall,
            Rough with heat was every wire--

        "Fare you well, you little winds
            That the flying embers chase!
...

I.
Stop, let me have the truth of that!
Is that all true? I say, the day
Ten years ago when both of us
Met on a morning, friends as thus
We meet this evening, friends or what?

II.
Did you because I took your arm
And sillily smiled, “A mass of brass
That sea looks, blazing underneath!”
While up the cliff-road edged with heath,
We took the turns nor came to harm

III.
Did you consider “Now makes twice
“That I have seen her, walked and talked
“With this poor pretty thoughtful thing,
“Whose worth I weigh: she tries to sing;
“Draws, hopes in time the eye grows nice;

IV.
“Reads verse and thinks she understands;
“Loves all, at any rate, that’s great,
“Good, beautiful; but much as we
“Down at the bath-house love the sea,<...

Weep on, weep on, your hour is past;
    Your dreams of pride are o'er;
The fatal chain is round you cast,
    And you are men no more.
In vain the hero's heart hath bled;
    The sage's tongue hath warned in vain;--
Oh, Freedom! once thy flame hath fled,
    It never lights again.

Weep on--perhaps in after days,
    They'll learn to love your name;
When many a deed may wake in praise
    That long hath slept in blame.
And when they tread the ruined isle,
    Where rest, at length, the lord and slave,
They'll wondering ask, how hands so vile
    Could conquer hearts so brave?

"'Twas fate," they'll say, "a wayward fate
    "Your web of discord wove;
"And while your tyrants joined in hate,
    "You never joined in love.
"But heart...

Strophe I

Ye shades, where sacred truth is sought;
Groves, where immortal Sages taught;
Where heav'nly visions of Plato fir'd,
And Epicurus lay inspir'd!
In vain your guiltless laurels stood
Unspotted long with human blood.
War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades,
And steel now glitters in the Muses' shades.

Antistrophe I

Oh heav'n-born sisters! source of art!
Who charm the sense, or mend the heart;
Who lead fair Virtue's train along,
Moral Truth, and mystic Song!
To what new clime, what distant sky,
Forsaken, friendless, shall ye fly?
Say, will you bless the bleak Atlantic shore?
Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more?

Strophe II

When Athens sinks by fates unjust,
When wild Barbarians spurn her dust;

All night the flares go up; the Dragon sings
And beats upon the dark with furious wings;
And, stung to rage by his own darting fires,
Reaches with grappling coils from town to town;
He lusts to break the loveliness of spires,
And hurls their martyred music toppling down.

Yet, though the slain are homeless as the breeze,
Vocal are they, like storm-bewilder'd seas.
Their faces are the fair, unshrouded night,
And planets are their eyes, their ageless dreams.
Tenderly stooping earthward from their height,
They wander in the dusk with chanting streams;
And they are dawn-lit trees, with arms up-flung,
To hail the burning heavens they left unsung.

A year had flown, and o’er the sea away,
In Cornwall, Tristram and Queen Iseult lay;
In King Marc’s chapel, in Tyntagel old
There in a ship they bore those lovers cold.
The young surviving Iseult, one bright day,
Had wander’d forth. Her children were at play
In a green circular hollow in the heath
Which borders the sea-shore a country path
Creeps over it from the till’d fields behind.
The hollow’s grassy banks are soft-inclined,
And to one standing on them, far and near
The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear
Over the waste. This cirque of open ground
Is light and green; the heather, which all round
Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass
Is strewn with rocks, and many a shiver’d mass
Of vein’d white-gleaming quartz, and here and there
...

Ye love, and sonnets write! Fate's strange behest!

The heart, its hidden meaning to declare,

Must seek for rhymes, uniting pair with pair:
Learn, children, that the will is weak, at best.

Scarcely with freedom the o'erflowing breast

As yet can speak, and well may it beware;

Tempestuous passions sweep each chord that's there,
Then once more sink to night and gentle rest.

Why vex yourselves and us, the heavy stone

Up the steep path but step by step to roll?

It falls again, and ye ne'er cease to strive.

THE LOVERS.

But we are on the proper road alone!

If gladly is to thaw the frozen soul,

The fire of love must aye be kept alive.

Methought last night I saw thee lowly laid,
    Thy pallid cheek yet paler, on the bier;
And scattered round thee many a lovely braid
    Of flowers, the brightest of the closing year;
Whilst on thy lips the placid smile that played,
    Proved thy soul's exit to a happier sphere,
In silent eloquence reproaching those
Who watched in agony thy last repose.

A pensive, wandering, melancholy light
    The moon's pale radiance on thy features cast,
Which, through the awful stillness of the night,
    Gleamed like some lovely vision of the past,
Recalling hopes once beautiful and bright,
    Now, like that struggling beam, receding fast,
Which o'er the scene a softening glory shed,
And kissed the brow of the unconscious dead.

Yes--it was thou!--and we we...

    You cannot take from out my heart the growing,
    The green, sweet growing, and the vivid thrill.
    "O Earth," you cry, "you should be old, not glowing
    With youth and all youth's strength and beauty still!"

    Old, and the new hopes stirring in my bosom!
    Old, and my children drawing life from me!
    Old, in my womb the tender bud and blossom!
    Old, steeped in richness and fertility!

    Old, while the growing things call to each other,
    In language I alone can understand:
    "How she doth nourish us, this wondrous mother
    Who is so beautiful and strong and grand!"

    Old, while the wild things of the forest hide them
    In my gray coverts, which no eye can trace!
    Hunted or hurt, 'tis my task to provide them
    Hea...

Who bides his time, and day by day
Faces defeat full patiently,
And lifts a mirthful roundelay,
However poor his fortunes be,
He will not fail in any qualm
Of poverty - the paltry dime
It will grow golden in his palm,
Who bides his time.

Who bides his time - he tastes the sweet
Of honey in the saltest tear;
And though he fares with slowest feet,
Joy runs to meet him, drawing near;
The birds are heralds of his cause;
And like a never-ending rhyme,
The roadsides bloom in his applause,
Who bides his time.

Who bides his time, and fevers not
In the hot race that none achieves,
Shall wear cool-wreathen laurel, wrought
With crimson berries in the leaves;
And he shall reign a goodly king,
And sway his hand o'er every clime,
Wi...

(For Aline)



Now by what whim of wanton chance
    Do radiant eyes know sombre days?
And feet that shod in light should dance
    Walk weary and laborious ways?

But rays from Heaven, white and whole,
    May penetrate the gloom of earth;
And tears but nourish, in your soul,
    The glory of celestial mirth.

The darts of toil and sorrow, sent
    Against your peaceful beauty, are
As foolish and as impotent
    As winds that blow against a star.

I cannot write old verses here,
    Dead things a thousand years away,
When all the life of the young year
    Is in the summer day.

The roses make the world so sweet,
    The bees, the birds have such a tune,
There's such a light and such a heat
    And such a joy this June,

One must expand one's heart with praise,
    And make the memory secure
Of sunshine and the woodland days
    And summer twilights pure.

Oh listen rather! Nature's song
    Comes from the waters, beating tides,
Green-margined rivers, and the throng
    Of streams on mountain-sides.

So fair those water-spirits are,
    Such happy strength their music fills,
Our joy shall be to wander far
    And find them on the hills.

I.
How happy he, who free from care
The rage of courts, and noise of towns;
Contented breaths his native air,
In his own grounds.

II.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

III.
Blest! who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide swift away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

IV.
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

V.
Thus let me live, unheard, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye.