Courage

It was deep night, and over Jerusalem's low roofs
The moon floated, drifting through high vaporous woofs.
The moonlight crept and glistened silent, solemn, sweet,
Over dome and column, up empty, endless street;
In the closed, scented gardens the rose loosed from the stem
Her white showery petals; none regarded them;
The starry thicket breathed odours to the sentinel palm;
Silence possessed the city like a soul possessed by calm.

Not a spark in the warren under the giant night,
Save where in a turret's lantern beamed a grave, still light:
There in the topmost chamber a gold-eyed lamp was lit -
Marvellous lamp in darkness, informing, redeeming it!
For, set in that tiny chamber, Jesus, the blessed and doomed,
Spoke to the lone apostles as light to men en-tombed;
And ...

    My honoured colonel, deep I feel
    Your interest in the Poet's weal;
    Ah! now sma' heart hae I to speel
        The steep Parnassus,
    Surrounded thus by bolus, pill,
        And potion glasses.

    O what a canty warld were it,
    Would pain and care and sickness spare it;
    And fortune favour worth and merit,
        As they deserve!
    (And aye a rowth, roast beef and claret;
        Syne, wha wad starve?)

    Dame Life, tho' fiction out may trick her,
    And in paste gems and frippery deck her;
    Oh! flickering, feeble, and unsicker
        I've found her still,
    Ay wavering like the willow-wicker,
        'Tween good and ill.

    Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan,
    Watches, like baudrons by a r...

Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Thee amid the daffodils.
Golden wealth thy basket fills;
Golden blossoms at thy breast;
Golden hair that shames the West;
Golden sunlight round thy head!
Ah! the golden years have fled;
Thee have reft, and me have left
Here alone, thy loss to mourn.

Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Her, as white and still she lies:
Death has woo'd and won his prize.
White the blossoms at her breast;
White and still her face at rest;
White the moonbeams round her head.
Ah! the wintry years have fled;
Comfort lent and patience sent,
And my grief is easier borne.

Persephone, Persephone!
Still in dreams thou com'st to me;
Every night art at my side,
Half my bride, and half...

Wake! for the Golden Cat has put to flight
The Mouse of Darkness with his Paw of Light:
Which means, in Plain and simple every-day
Unoriental Speech--The Dawn is bright.




They say the Early Bird the Worm shall taste.
Then rise, O Kitten! Wherefore, sleeping, waste
The Fruits of Virtue? Quick! the Early Bird
Will soon be on the Flutter--O make haste!




The Early Bird has gone, and with him ta'en
The Early Worm--Alas! the Moral's plain,
O Senseless Worm! Thus, thus we are repaid
For Early Rising--I shall doze again.




The Mouse makes merry 'mid the Larder Shelves,
The Bird for Dinner in the Garden delves.
I often wonder what the creatures eat
One half so toothsome as they are Themselves.

Knight and Troubadour, to his Lady the Beautiful Maenz of Martagnac

The burden of the sometime years,
That once my soul did overweigh,
Falls from me, with its griefs and fears,
When gazing in thine eyes of gray;
Wherein, behold, like some bright ray
Of dawn, thy heart's fond love appears,
To cheer my life upon its way.

Thine eyes! the daybreak of my heart!
That give me strength to do and dare;
Whose beauty is a radiant part
Of all my songs; the music there;
The morning, that makes dim each care,
And glorifies my mind's dull mart,
And helps my soul to do and dare.

God, when He made thy fresh fair face,
And thy young body, took the morn
And made thee like a rose, whose race
Is not of Earth; without a thorn,
And dewed thee with th...

Since as in night's deck-watch ye show,
Why, lads, so silent here to me,
Your watchmate of times long ago?
Once, for all the darkling sea,
You your voices raised how clearly,
Striking in when tempest sung;
Hoisting up the storm-sail cheerly,
Life is storm--let storm! you rung.
Taking things as fated merely,
Childlike though the world ye spanned;
Nor holding unto life too dearly,
Ye who held your lives in hand--
Skimmers, who on oceans four
Petrels were, and larks ashore.

O, not from memory lightly flung,
Forgot, like strains no more availing,
The heart to music haughtier strung;
Nay, frequent near me, never staleing,
Whose good feeling kept ye young.
Like tides that enter creek or stream,
Ye come, ye visit me, or seem
Swim...

From far-off it came near
Deep-charactered and clear,
Until I saw the features close to mine
And the eyes unhappy shine.

It was Sorrow's face,
Wanting kindness and grace,
And wanting strength of silence, and the power
To abide a luckier hour.

The first fear turned to hating
As I saw him dumbly waiting,
For it was my true likeness that he wore
And would wear evermore:--

My face that was to be
When his years' misery
With here a little and there a little had made
My strong spirit afraid.

I saw his face and hated,
Seeing mine so sad-fated.
And then I struck and killed him, knowing that he
Had else slain me.

    THE ONE

    The dead man's gone, the live man's sad, the dying leaf shakes on the tree,
    The wind constrains the window-panes and moans like moaning of the sea,
    And sour's the taste now culled in haste of lovely things I won too late,
    And loud and loud above the crowd the Voice of One more strong than we.


    THE OTHER

    This Voice you hear, this call you fear, is it unprophesied or new?
    Were you so insolent to think its rope would never circle you?
    Did you then beastlike live and walk with ears and eyes that would not turn?
    Who bade you hope your service 'scape in that eternal retinue?


    THE ONE

    No; for I swear now bare's the tree and loud the moaning of the wind,
    I walked no rut with eyelids shut, ...

Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack,
Ye little men of little souls!
And bid them huddle at your back,
Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!

Fill all the air with hungry wails,
"Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite!"

And, where great Plato paced serene,
Or Newton paused with wistful eye,
Rush to the chace with hoofs unclean
And Babel-clamour of the sty

Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:
We will not rob them of their due,
Nor vex the ghosts of other days
By naming them along with you.

They sought and found undying fame:
They toiled not for reward nor thanks:
Their cheeks are hot with honest shame
For you, the modern mountebanks!

Who prea...

    Mostly in a dull rotation
    We bear our loads and eat and drink and sleep.
    Feeling no tears, knowing no meditation,
    Too tired to think, too clogged with earth to weep.

    Dimly convinced, poor groping wretches,
    Like eyeless insects in a murky pond
    That out and out this city stretches,
    Away, away, and there is no beyond.

    No larger earth, no loftier heaven,
    No cleaner, gentler airs to breathe.    And yet,
    Even to us sometimes is given
    Visions of things we other times forget.

    Some day is done, its labour ended,
    And as we sit and brood at windows high,
    A steady wind from far descended,
    Blows off the filth that hid the deeper sky;

    There are the empty waiting spaces,
    We w...

I.

    Now spring has clad the grove in green,
        And strew'd the lea wi' flowers:
    The furrow'd waving corn is seen
        Rejoice in fostering showers;
    While ilka thing in nature join
        Their sorrows to forego,
    O why thus all alone are mine
        The weary steps of woe?

II.

    The trout within yon wimpling burn
        Glides swift, a silver dart,
    And safe beneath the shady thorn
        Defies the angler's art:
    My life was ance that careless stream,
        That wanton trout was I;
    But love, wi' unrelenting beam,
        Has scorch'd my fountains dry.

III.

    The little flow'ret's peaceful lot,
        In yonder cliff that grows,
    Which, save the linnet's flight...

When you are old, and I am passed away
Passed, and your face, your golden face, is gray
I think, whate'er the end, this dream of mine,
Comforting you, a friendly star will shine
Down the dim slope where still you stumble and stray.

So may it be:    that so dead Yesterday,
No sad-eyed ghost but generous and gay,
May serve you memories like almighty wine,
When you are old!

Dear Heart, it shall be so.    Under the sway
Of death the past's enormous disarray
Lies hushed and dark. Yet though there come no sign,
Live on well pleased: immortal and divine
Love shall still tend you, as God's angels may,
When you are old.

I

THE GLADIOLAS.

As tall as the lily, as tall as the rose,
And almost as tall as the hollyhocks,
Ranked breast to breast in sentinel rows
Stand the gladiola stocks.

And some are red as the humming-bird's blood
And some are pied as the butterfly race,
And each is shaped like a velvet hood
Gold-lined with delicate lace.

For you know the goblins that come like musk
To tumble and romp in the flowers' laps,
When you see big fire-fly eyes in the dusk,
Hang there their goblin caps.


II

THE MORNING-GLORIES.

They bloom up the fresh, green trellis
In airy, vigorous ease,
And their fragrant, sensuous honey
Is best beloved of the bees.

Oh! the rose knows the dainty secret
How the morning-glory b...

Beneath thy skies, November!
Thy skies of cloud and rain,
Around our blazing camp-fires
We close our ranks again.
Then sound again the bugles,
Call the muster-roll anew;
If months have well-nigh won the field,
What may not four years do?
For God be praised! New England
Takes once more her ancient place;
Again the Pilgrim's banner
Leads the vanguard of the race.
Then sound again the bugles, etc.
Along the lordly Hudson,
A shout of triumph breaks;
The Empire State is speaking,
From the ocean to the lakes.
Then sound again the bugles, etc.
The Northern hills are blazing,
The Northern skies are bright;
And the fair young West is turning
Her forehead to the light!
Then sound again the bugles,. etc.
Push every outpost nearer,
...

A dewy flower, bathed in crimson light,
May touch the soul--a pure and beauteous sight;
A golden river flashing 'neath the sun,
May reach the spot where life's dark waters run;
Yet, when the sun is gone, the splendor dies,
With drooping head the tender flower lies.
And such is life; a golden mist of light,
A tangled web that glitters in the sun;
When shadows come, the glory takes its flight,
The treads are dark and worn, and life is done.
Oh! tears, that chill us like the dews of eve,
Why come unbid--why should we ever grieve?
Why is it, though life hath its leaves of gold,
The book each day some sorrow must unfold!
What human heart with truth can dare to say
No grief is mine--this is a perfect day?
Oh! poet, take your harp of gold and sing,
And all the e...

Now was the hour that wakens fond desire
In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart,
Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell,
And pilgrim newly on his road with love
Thrills, if he hear the vesper bell from far,
That seems to mourn for the expiring day:
When I, no longer taking heed to hear
Began, with wonder, from those spirits to mark
One risen from its seat, which with its hand
Audience implor'd. Both palms it join'd and rais'd,
Fixing its steadfast gaze towards the east,
As telling God, "I care for naught beside."

"Te Lucis Ante," so devoutly then
Came from its lip, and in so soft a strain,
That all my sense in ravishment was lost.
And the rest after, softly and devout,
Follow'd through all the hymn, with upward gaze
Directed to the...

Upon his sculptured judgment throne the Roman Ruler sate;
His glittering minions stood around in all their gorgeous state;
But proud as were the noble names that flashed upon each shield -
Names known in lofty council halls as well as tented field -
None dared approach to break the spell of deep and silent gloom
That hover'd o'er his haughty brow, like shadow of the tomb.

While still he mused the air was rent with loud and deaf'ning cry,
And angry frown and darker smile proclaimed the victim nigh.
No traitor to his native land, no outlaw fierce was there,
'Twas but a young and gentle girl, as opening rose bud fair,
Who stood alone among those men, so dark and full of guile,
And yet her cheek lost not its bloom, her lips their gentle smile.

At length he spoke, that rut...

I.

Here’s the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss
Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!
She must have reached this shrub ere she turned,
As back with that murmur the wicket swung;
For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned,
To feed and forget it the leaves among.

II.

Down this side ofthe gravel-walk
She went while her robe’s edge brushed the box:
And here she paused in her gracious talk
To point me a moth on the milk-white flox.
Roses, ranged in valiant row,
I will never think that she passed you by!
She loves you noble roses, I know;
But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie!

III.

This flower she stopped at, finger on lip,
Stoope...