Courage

Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled,
Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled,
Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world.

They are purged of pride because they died, they know the worth of their bays,
They sit at wine with the Maidens Nine and the Gods of the Elder Days,
It is their will to serve or be still as fitteth our Father's praise.

'Tis theirs to sweep through the ringing deep where Azrael's outposts are,
Or buffet a path through the Pit's red wrath when God goes out to war,
Or hang with the reckless Seraphim on the rein of a red-maned star.

They take their mirth in the joy of the Earth, they dare not grieve for her pain,
They know of toil and the end of toil, they know God's law is plain,...

Oh, Masters, you who rule the world,
Will you not wait with me awhile,
When swords are sheathed and sails are furled,
And all the fields with harvest smile?
I would not waste your time for long,
I ask you but, when you are tired,
To read how by the weak, the strong
Are weighed and worshipped and desired.

When weary of the Mart, the Loom,
The Withering-house, the Riffle-blocks,
The Barrack-square, the Engine-room,
The pick-axe, ringing on the rocks,--
When tents are pitched and work is done,
While restful twilight broods above,
By fresh-lit lamp, or dying sun,
See in my songs how women love.

We shared your lonely watch by night,
We knew you faithful at the helm,
Our thoughts went with you through the fight,
That saved a soul,--or wrec...

He rose at dawn and, fired with hope,
Shot o’er the seething harbor-bar,
And reach’d the ship and caught the rope,
And whistled to the morning star.

And while he whistled long and loud
He heard a fierce mermaiden cry,
‘O boy, tho’ thou art young and proud,
I see the place where thou wilt lie.

‘The sands and yeasty surges mix
In caves about the dreary bay,
And on thy ribs the limpet sticks,
And in thy heart the scrawl shall play.’

‘Fool,’ he answer’d, ‘death is sure
To those that stay and those that roam,
But I will nevermore endure
To sit with empty hands at home.

‘My mother clings about my neck,
My sisters crying, “Stay for shame;”
My father raves of death and wreck,–
They are all to blame, they are all to blame.

A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown;
A route through a heavy wood, with muffled steps in the darkness;
Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating;
Till after midnight glimmer upon us, the lights of a dim-lighted
building;
We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted
building;
'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads--'tis now an impromptu
hospital;
--Entering but for a minute, I see a sight beyond all the pictures
and poems ever made:
Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and
lamps,
And by one great pitchy torch, stationary, with wild red flame, and
clouds of smoke;
By these, crowds, groups of forms, vaguely I see, on the floor, some
in the pews laid down;
At my ...

I

Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent,
One-third departed of the mortal span,
Carrying on the child into the man,
Nothing into reality. Sails rent,
And rudder broken, reason impotent
Affections all unfixed; so forth I fare
On the mid seas unheedingly, so dare
To do and to be done by, well content.
So was it from the first, so is it yet;
Yea, the first kiss that by these lips was set
On any human lips, methinks was sin
Sin, cowardice, and falsehood; for the will
Into a deed e’en then advanced, wherein
God, unidentified, was thought-of still.

II

Though to the vilest things beneath the moon
For poor Ease’ sake I give away my heart,
And for the moment’s sympathy let part
My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon,
My ...

My father was a scholar and knew Greek.
When I was five years old, I asked him once
“What do you read about?”
“The siege of Troy.”
“What is a siege, and what is Troy?”
Whereat
He piled up chairs and tables for a town,
Set me a-top for Priam, called our cat
Helen, enticed away from home (he said)
By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close
Under the footstool, being cowardly,
But whom, since she was worth the pains, poor puss,
Towzer and Tray, our dogs, the Atreidai, sought
By taking Troy to get possession of
Always when great Achilles ceased to sulk,
(My pony in the stable), forth would prance
And put to flight Hector, our page-boy’s self.
This taught me who was who and what was what:
So far I rightly understood the case
At five years old; a hu...

Lo! Time, at last, has brought, with tardy flight,
The long-anticipated, wish'd-for night;
How on this blissful night, while yet remote,
Did Hope and Fancy with fond rapture doat!
Like eagles, oft, in glory's dazzling sky,
With full-stretch'd pinions have they soar'd on high,
To greet the appearance of the poet's name,
Dawning conspicuous mid the stars of fame.

Alas! they soar not now; the demon, Fear,
Has hurl'd the cherubs from their heavenly sphere:
Fancy, o'erwhelm'd with terror, grovelling lies;
The world of torment opens on her eyes,
Darkness and hissing all she sees and hears;
        ("The speaker pauses the audience are
            supposed to clap, when he continues,")
But Hope, returning to dispel her fears,
Claps her bright wings; the magic s...

The curtain rose; in thunders long and loud
The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed.
In flaming line the telltales of the stage
Showed on his brow the autograph of age;
Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair,
And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care;
Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye, -
He strove to speak, - his voice was but a sigh.

Year after year had seen its short-lived race
Flit past the scenes and others take their place;
Yet the old prompter watched his accents still,
His name still flaunted on the evening's bill.
Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor,
Had died in earnest and were heard no more;
Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread
They faced the footlights in unborrowed red,
Had faded slowly through suc...

I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade,
‘The Legend of Good Women,’ long ago
Sung by the morning star of song, who made
His music heard below;

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.

And, for a while, the knowledge of his art
Held me above the subject, as strong gales
Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho’ my heart,
Brimful of those wild tales,

Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land
I saw, wherever light illumineth,
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand
The downward slope to death.

Those far-renowned brides of ancient song
Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars,
And I heard sounds of ins...

Dawn-cool, dew-cool
Gleams the surface of my pool
Bird haunted, fern enchanted,
Where but tempered spirits rule;
Stars do not trace their mystic lines
In my confines;
I take a double night within my breast
A night of darkened heavens, a night of leaves,
And in the two-fold dark I hear the owl
Puff at his velvet horn
And the wolves howl.
Even daylight comes with a touch of gold
Not overbold,
And shows dwarf-cornel and the twin-flowers,
Below the balsam bowers,
Their tints enamelled in my dew-drop shield.
Too small even for a thirsty fawn
To quench upon,
I hold my crystal at one level
There where you see the liquid bevel
Break in silver and go free
Singing to its destiny.

Give, Poet, give!
Thus only shalt thou live.
...

What's in a 'Name'?
. . . . .
Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as Caesar!

PROLOGUE

There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon;
But through the clouds I'll never float
Until I have a little Boat,
Shaped like the crescent-moon.

And now I 'have' a little Boat,
In shape a very crescent-moon
Fast through the clouds my boat can sail;
But if perchance your faith should fail,
Look up and you shall see me soon!

The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring,
Rocking and roaring like a sea;
The noise of danger's in your ears,
And ye have all a thousand fears
Both for my little Boat and me!

Meanwhile untroubled I admire
The pointed horns of my canoe;
And, did not pity touch my breast,

How cheering are thy prospects, airy hill,
To him who, pale and languid, on thy brow
Pauses, respiring, and bids hail again
The upland breeze, the comfortable sun,
And all the landscape's hues! Upon the point
Of the descending steep I stand.
    How rich,
How mantling in the gay and gorgeous tints
Of summer! far beneath me, sweeping on,
From field to field, from vale to cultured vale,
The prospect spreads its crowded beauties wide!
Long lines of sunshine, and of shadow, streak
The farthest distance; where the passing light
Alternate falls, 'mid undistinguished trees,
White dots of gleamy domes, and peeping towers,
As from the painter's instant touch, appear.
As thus the eye ranges from hill to hill,
Here white with passing sunshine, there with trees
...

One day in ashy, cindery terrains,
As I meandered, making my complaint
To nature, slowly sharpening the knife
Of thought against the whetstone of my heart,
In plainest day I saw around my head
A lowering cloud as weighty as a storm,
Which bore within a vicious demon throng
Who showed themselves as cruel and curious dwarfs.
Disdainfully they circled and observed
And, as a madman draws a crowd to jokes,
I heard them laugh and whisper each to each,
Giving their telling nudges and their winks:
'Now is the time to roast this comic sketch,
This shadow-Hamlet, who takes the pose
The indecisive stare and straying hair.
A pity, isn't it, to see this fraud,
This posturer, this actor on relief?
Because he plays his role with some slight art
He thinks his shabby...

A grievous day of wrathful winds,
Of low-hung clouds, which scud and fly,
And drop cold rains, then lift and show
A sullen realm of upper sky.

The sea is black as night; it roars
From lips afoam with cruel spray,
Like some fierce, many-throated pack
Of wolves, which scents and chases prey.

Crouched in my little wind-swept nook,
I hear the menacing voices call,
And shudder, as above the deck
Topples and swings the weltering wall.

It seems a vast and restless grave,
Insatiate, hungry, beckoning
With dreadful gesture of command
To every free and living thing.

"O Lord," I cry, "Thou makest life
And hope and all sweet things to be;
Rebuke this hovering, following Death,--
This horror never born of Thee."

A sudden gl...

Best beloved of ancient stories
Are our Diarmid's woes to me.
Like a mist, by breezes broken,
So this tale of olden glories
Floats in fragments, as a token
Of the song of Ireland's sea.

Through long centuries repeated
Lived the legend told in Erse,
But a change comes swift or slowly
Fades the language, and defeated
Flies the faith, once counted holy,
Old-world ways, and oral verse.

Not from men of note or learning
May we gather now these tales,
Heard beneath the cotter's rafter,
Or where smithy sparks are burning,
Or at sea, when hushed the laughter
Of the breeze on hull and sails.

Then with Ossian's rhythmic Measure
Comes upon the fancy's sight,
One with golden locks; resplendent,
Great and strong with eyes of azure,...

The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits,
The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates,
The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar,
Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.

There stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise,
The man who chained the Minotaur, the man who built the Maze.
His young son is beside him and the boy's face is a light,
A light of dawn and wonder and of valor infinite.

Their great vans beat the cloven air, like eagles they mount up,
Motes in the wine of morning, specks in a crystal cup,
And lest his wings should melt apace old Daedalus flies low,
But Icarus beats up, beats up, he goes where lightnings go.

He cares no more for warnings, he rushes throu...

Thou Cherub fair! in whose blue, sparkling eye
New joys, anticipated, ever play;
Celestial Hope! with whose all-potent sway
The moral elements of life comply;
At thy melodious voice their jarrings cease,
And settle into order, beauty, peace;
How dear to memory that thrice-hallow'd hour
Which gave Thee to the world, auspicious Power!
Sent by thy parent, Mercy, from the sky,
Invested with her own all-cheering ray,
To dissipate the thick, black cloud of fate
Which long had shrouded this terrestrial state,
    What time fair Virtue, struggling with despair,
Pour'd forth to pitying heaven her saddest soul in prayer:
    Then, then she saw the brightening gloom divide,
    And Thee, sweet Comforter! adown thy rainbow glide.
    From the veil'd awful future, to her v...

I

Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round;
    So slowly that no human eye hath power
    To see it move!    Slowly in shine or shower
    The painted ship above it, homeward bound,
Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground;
    Yet both arrive at last; and in his tower
    The slumberous watchman wakes and strikes the hour,
    A mellow, measured, melancholy sound.
Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!
    The frontier town and citadel of night!
    The watershed of Time, from which the streams
Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way,
    One to the land of promise and of light,
    One to the land of darkness and of dreams!

II

O River of Yesterday, with current swift
    Through chasms descending, and soon lost to sight,