Courage

I, Alphonso, live and learn,
Seeing Nature go astern.
Things deteriorate in kind;
Lemons run to leaves and rind;
Meagre crop of figs and limes;
Shorter days and harder times.
Flowering April cools and dies
In the insufficient skies.
Imps, at high midsummer, blot
Half the sun's disk with a spot;
'Twill not now avail to tan
Orange cheek or skin of man.
Roses bleach, the goats are dry,
Lisbon quakes, the people cry.
Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools,
Gaunt as bitterns in the pools,
Are no brothers of my blood;--
They discredit Adamhood.
Eyes of gods! ye must have seen,
O'er your ramparts as ye lean,
The general debility;
Of genius the sterility;
Mighty projects countermanded;
Rash ambition, brokenhanded;
Puny man and scentless...

Within our happy Castle there dwelt One
Whom without blame I may not overlook;
For never sun on living creature shone
Who more devout enjoyment with us took:
Here on his hours he hung as on a book,
On his own time here would he float away,
As doth a fly upon a summer brook;
But go to-morrow, or belike to-day,
Seek for him, he is fled; and whither none can say.

Thus often would he leave our peaceful home,
And find elsewhere his business or delight;
Out of our Valley's limits did he roam:
Full many a time, upon a stormy night,
His voice came to us from the neighbouring height:
Oft could we see him driving full in view
At mid-day when the sun was shining bright;
What ill was on him, what he had to do,
A mighty wonder bred among our quiet crew.

Before I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!
In sleep I heard the northern gleams;
The stars, they were among my dreams;
In rustling conflict through the skies,
I heard, I saw the flashes drive,
And yet they are upon my eyes,
And yet I am alive;
Before I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!

My fire is dead: it knew no pain;
Yet is it dead, and I remain:
All stiff with ice the ashes lie;
And they are dead, and I will die.
When I was well, I wished to live,
For clothes, for warmth, for food, and fire;
But they to me no joy can give,
No pleasure now, and no desire.
Then here contented will I lie
Alone, I cannot fear to die.

Alas! ye might have dragged me on
Another day, a single one!
Too soon I yielded to despa...

I

Once, in a dream, I saw a man
    With haggard face and tangled hair,
And eyes that nursed as wild a care
    As gaunt Starvation ever can;
And in his hand he held a wand
    Whose magic touch gave life and thought
    Unto a form his fancy wrought
And robed with coloring so grand,
    It seemed the reflex of some child
    Of Heaven, fair and undefiled -
    A face of purity and love -
    To woo him into worlds above:
And as I gazed with dazzled eyes,
    A gleaming smile lit up his lips
    As his bright soul from its eclipse
Went flashing into Paradise.
Then tardy Fame came through the door
And found a picture - nothing more.

II

And once I saw a man, alone,
    In abject poverty, with hand
Uplifted o'er a b...

Sweet and shrill the crickets hiding in the grasses brown and lean
Pipe their gladness - sweeter, shriller - one would think the world was green.
O the haze is on the hilltops, and the haze is on the lake!
See it fleeing through the valley with the bold wind in its wake!
            Mark the warm October haze!
            Mark the splendor of the days!
And the mingling of the crimson with the sombre brown and grays!

See the bare hills turn their furrows to the shine and to the glow;
If you listen you can hear it, hear a murmur soft and low -
"We are naked," so the fields say, "stripped of all our golden dress."
"Heed it not," October answers, "for I love ye none the less.
            Share my beauty and my cheer
            While we rest together here,
In these sun-fil...

AHASUERAS

What were thy thoughts, sweet Esther?    Something passed
Across thy face, that for a moment veiled
Thy soul from mine, and left me desolate.
Thy thoughts were not of me?

ESTHER

    Ay, ALL of thee!
I wondered, if in truth, thou wert content
With me - thy choice.    Was there no other one
Of all who passed before thee at thy court
Whose memory pursues thee with regret?

AHASUERAS

I do confess I much regret that day
And wish I could relive it.

ESTHER

    Oh!    My lord!

AHASUERAS

Yea!    I regret those hours I wasted on
The poor procession that preceded thee.
Hadst thou come first, then all the added wealth

    Of one long day of loving thee were mine -
A boundless for...

"Her beauty might outface the jealous hours,
Turn shame to love and pain to a tender sleep,
And the strong nerve of hate to sloth and tears;
Make spring rebellious in the sides of frost,
Thrust out lank winter with hot August growths,
Compel sweet blood into the husks of death,
And from strange beasts enforce harsh courtesy."

T. Hayman, Fall of Antony, 1655.


I
Her mouth is fragrant as a vine,
A vine with birds in all its boughs;
Serpent and scarab for a sign
Between the beauty of her brows
And the amorous deep lids divine.

II
Her great curled hair makes luminous
Her cheeks, her lifted throat and chin
Shall she not have the hearts of us
To shatter, and the loves therein
To shred between her fingers thus?

...

A man is not what oft he seems,
On this terrestrial sphere,
No pow'r to wield, no honor'd place,
Oft curb his spirit here.

He knows not what within him lies,
Until his pow'rs be tried,
And when for them some use is found,
They spring from where they hide,

To startle and to puzzle him,
Who never knew their force,
Because his unfreed spirit kept
A low and shackl'd course.

Dishearten'd and despairing, he
Had often sigh'd alone,
Not thinking that in other ways
His spirit might have grown.

Not thinking that another course,
Which needed pluck and vim,
Might raise his drowning spirit high,
And teach it how to swim;

To battle with the rolling tide,
That hurries onward men,
And raise his head above the waves,<...

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eyelids close,
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceived, no thought expressed,
Only a sense of supplication;
A sense o'er all my soul impressed
That I am weak, yet not unblessed,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal strength and wisdom are.

But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me:
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorned, those only strong!
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning sti...

1.

One Day the Amarous Lisander,
By an impatient Passion sway'd,
Surpris'd fair Cloris, that lov'd Maid,
Who cou'd defend her self no longer ;
All things did with his Love conspire,
The gilded Planet of the Day,
In his gay Chariot, drawn by Fire,
War now descending to the Sea,
And left no Light to guide the World,
But what from Cloris brighter Eves was hurl'd.

2.

In alone Thicket, made for Love,
Silent as yielding Maids Consent,
She with a charming Languishment
Permits his force, yet gently strove ?
Her Hands his Bosom softly meet,
But not to put him back design'd,
Rather to draw him on inclin'd,
Whilst he lay trembling at her feet;
Resistance 'tis to late to shew,
She wants the pow'r to sav, Ah!what do you do?
<...

Radiant notes
piercing my narrow-chested room,
beating down through my ceiling -
smeared with unshapen
belly-prints of dreams
drifted out of old smokes -
trillions of icily
peltering notes
out of just one canary,
all grown to song
as a plant to its stalk,
from too long craning at a sky-light
and a square of second-hand blue.

Silvery-strident throat -
so assiduously serenading my brain,
flinching under
the glittering hail of your notes -
were you not safe behind... rats know what thickness of... plastered wall...
I might fathom
your golden delirium
with throttle of finger and thumb
shutting valve of bright song.

II

But if... away off... on a fork of grassed earth
socketing an inlet reach of blue water......

The prophetic tribe with burning eyes
yesterday took to the highway, carrying
children slung on their backs, or offering
proud hunger the breast’s ever-ripe prize.

The men go on foot, with shining weapons,
by the carts where their folk huddle together,
sweeping the heavens, eyes grown heavier
with mournful regret for absent visions.

The cricket, deep in his sandy retreat,
redoubles his call, on seeing their passing feet:
Cybele, who loves them, re-leafs the glades,

makes the rocks gush, the desert bloom,
before these voyagers, thrown wide to whom
is the intimate kingdom of future shades.

I

I nursed it in my bosom while it lived,
    I hid it in my heart when it was dead;
In joy I sat alone, even so I grieved
    Alone and nothing said.

I shut the door to face the naked truth,
    I stood alone - I faced the truth alone,
Stripped bare of self-regard or forms or ruth
    Till first and last were shown.

I took the perfect balances and weighed;
    No shaking of my hand disturbed the poise;
Weighed, found it wanting: not a word I said,
    But silent made my choice.

None know the choice I made; I make it still.
    None know the choice I made and broke my heart,
Breaking mine idol: I have braced my will
    Once, chosen for once my part.

I broke it at a blow, I laid it cold,
    Crushed in my deep heart wher...

Send out the singers,let the room be still;
They have not eased my pain nor brought me sleep.
Close out the sun, for I would have it dark
That I may feel how black the grave will be.
The sun is setting, for the light is red,
And you are outlined in a golden fire,
Like Ursula upon an altar-screen.
Come, leave the light and sit beside my bed,
For I have had enough of saints and prayers.
Strange broken thoughts are beating in my brain,
They come and vanish and again they come.
It is the fever driving out my soul,
And Death stands waiting by the arras there.

Ornella, I will speak, for soon my lips
Shall keep a silence till the end of time.
You have a mouth for loving,listen then:
Keep tryst with Love before Death comes to tryst;
For I, who die, could wi...

In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;
Sad patience--joyous energies;
Humility--yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity--reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel--Art.

Now the joys of the road are chiefly these:
A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees;

A vagrant's morning wide and blue,
In early fall when the wind walks, too;

A shadowy highway cool and brown,
Alluring up and enticing down

From rippled water to dappled swamp,
From purple glory to scarlet pomp;

The outward eye, the quiet will,
And the striding heart from hill to hill;

The tempter apple over the fence;
The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince;

The palish asters along the wood,--
A lyric touch of the solitude;

An open hand, an easy shoe.
And a hope to make the day go through,--

Another to sleep with, and a third
To wake me up at the voice of a bird;

The resonant far-listening morn,
And the hoarse w...

‘I hope it is in good plain verse,’ said my uncle, ‘none of your hurry-scurry anapæsts, as you call them, in lines which sober people read for plain heroics. Nothing is more disagreeable than to say a line over two, or, it may be, three or four times, and at last not be sure that there are not three or four ways of reading, each as good and as much intended as another. Simplex duntaxat et unum. But you young people think Horace and your uncles old fools.’

‘Certainly, my dear sir,’ said I; ‘that is, I mean, Horace and my uncle are perfectly right. Still, there is an instructed ear and an uninstructed. A rude taste for identical recurrences would exact sing-song from “Paradise Lost,” and grumble because “Il Penseroso” doesn’t run like a nursery rhyme.’ ‘Well, well,’ said my uncle, ‘sunt certi denique fines, no doubt. So commence,...

Advance, come forth from thy Tyrolean ground,
Dear Liberty! stern Nymph of soul untamed;
Sweet Nymph, O rightly of the mountains named!
Through the long chain of Alps from mound to mound
And o'er the eternal snows, like Echo, bound;
Like Echo, when the hunter train at dawn
Have roused her from her sleep: and forest-lawn,
Cliffs, woods and caves, her viewless steps resound
And babble of her pastime! On, dread Power!
With such invisible motion speed thy flight,
Through hanging clouds, from craggy height to height,
Through the green vales and through the herdsman's bower
That all the Alps may gladden in thy might,
Here, there, and in all places at one hour.