Courage

I.

Let’s contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
Only sleep!

II.

What so wild as words are?
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!

III.

See the creature stalking
While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek!

IV.

What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpent’s tooth is
Shun the tree

V.

Where the apple reddens
Never pry
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I.

VI.

Be a god and hold me
With a charm!
Be a man and fold me
With thine arm!

VII.

Teach me, only teach, Love
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought

VIII....

To this white temple of my heroes here,
Beset with stately figures everywhere
Of such rare saintships, who did here consume
Their lives in sweets, and left in death perfume,
Come, thou brave man! And bring with thee a stone
Unto thine own edification.
High are these statues here, besides no less
Strong than the heavens for everlastingness:
Where build aloft; and, being fix'd by these,
Set up thine own eternal images.

January 25, 1859

His birthday. - Nay, we need not speak
The name each heart is beating, -
Each glistening eye and flushing cheek
In light and flame repeating!

We come in one tumultuous tide, -
One surge of wild emotion, -
As crowding through the Frith of Clyde
Rolls in the Western Ocean;

As when yon cloudless, quartered moon
Hangs o'er each storied river,
The swelling breasts of Ayr and Doon
With sea green wavelets quiver.

The century shrivels like a scroll, -
The past becomes the present, -
And face to face, and soul to soul,
We greet the monarch-peasant.

While Shenstone strained in feeble flights
With Corydon and Phillis, -
While Wolfe was climbing Abraham's heights
To snatch the Bourbon lilies, -

...

ILIAD, XVIII. 2O2.


So saying, light-foot Iris pass’d away.
Then rose Achilles dear to Zeus; and round
The warrior’s puissant shoulders Pallas flung
Her fringed ægis, and around his head
The glorious goddess wreath’d a golden cloud,
And from it lighted an all-shining flame.
As when a smoke from a city goes to heaven
Far off from out an island girt by foes,
All day the men contend in grievous war
From their own city, but with set of sun
Their fires flame thickly, and aloft the glare
Flies streaming, if perchance the neighbours round
May see, and sail to help them in the war;
So from his head the splendour went to heaven.
From wall to dyke he stept, he stood, nor join’d
The Achæans—honouring his wise mother’s word—
There standing, shouted, and Pa...

Dark was the world when from the bowers
    Of forfeit Eden man went forth,
With aching heart and blighted powers,
    To till the sterile soil of earth;
Yet, even then, a glimmering light
    Faintly illumed the eastern skies,
And, struggling through the mists of night,
    Beamed soft on Abel's sacrifice.

It shone on Abram's eager eyes
    Upon Moriah's lonely height,
And Jacob, 'neath the midnight skies,
    In hallowed dreams beheld its light;
And o'er Arabia's desert sand
    Where weary Israel wandered on,
In doubt and fear toward Canaan's land,
    The hallowed dawning brighter shone.

Ages roll on 'mid deep'ning day,
    And prophet-bard and holy seer
Watch eagerly the kindling ray,
    To see the blessed sun appear -
Wat...

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]

OCTOBER 1, 18 - .

        Wind in the south-west; weather fit to stay;
        A sweet, old-fashioned, Indian-summer day -
        When Heaven and Earth both seem to look at you
        Through hair of gold and misty eyes of blue.
        My wife said, as we talked of it together,
        It seemed as if some of our old farm weather
        Had got tired of the sober hills of brown,
        Hitched up a cloud, and driven into town!

        We went to church, and heard a sermon preached,
        Which all the way from Earth to Heaven reached,
        And lifted us up toward the town divine,
        Till we could almost see the steeples shine,
        And hear the mighty chariots as they rolled
        Alo...

HE.

On to the field, our doom is sealed,
    To conquer or be slaves:
This sun shall see our nation free,
    Or set upon our graves.

SHE.

Farewell, oh farewell, my love,
    May heaven thy guardian be,
And send bright angels from above
    To bring thee back to me.

HE.

On to the field, the battle-field,
    Where freedom's standard waves,
This sun shall see our tyrant yield,
    Or shine upon our graves.

Thou see'st me, Lucia, this year droop;
Three zodiacs fill'd more, I shall stoop;
Let crutches then provided be
To shore up my debility:
Then, while thou laugh'st, I'll sighing cry,
A ruin underpropt am I:
Don will I then my beadsman's gown;
And when so feeble I am grown
As my weak shoulders cannot bear
The burden of a grasshopper;
Yet with the bench of aged sires,
When I and they keep termly fires,
With my weak voice I'll sing, or say
Some odes I made of Lucia;
Then will I heave my wither'd hand
To Jove the mighty, for to stand
Thy faithful friend, and to pour down
Upon thee many a benison.

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]

At The Summit Of The Washington Monument.

        Look North! A white-clad city fills
        This valley to its sloping hills;
        Here gleams the modest house of white,
        The statesman's longed-for, dizzy height.
        Beyond, a pledge of love to one
        Who in two lands was Freedom's son -
        The holder of an endless debt -
        Our nation's brother, Lafayette.
        But yonder lines of costly homes
        And bristling spires and swelling domes,
        And far away the spreading farms
        Where thrift displays substantial charms,
        And hamlets creeping out of sight,
        And cities full of wealth and might,
        Must own the fatherhood of him
        Whose...

On rainy days old dreams arise,
    From graves where they have lonely lain;
With wan white cheeks and mournful eyes,
    They press against the window pane.
One dream is bolder than the rest:
    She enters at the door and stays,
A welcome yet unbidden guest
    On rainy days.

On rainy days, my dream and I
    Turn back the hands of memory's books:
We sup on pleasures long gone by -
    We drink of unforgotten brooks;
We ransack garrets of the Past,
    We sing old songs, we play old plays;
While hurrying Time looks on aghast,
    On rainy days.

On rainy days, my ghostly dreams
    Come clothed in garments like the mist,
But through that vapoury veiling, gleams
    The lustrous eyes my lips have kissed.
A radiant head leans on ...

When the grey geese heard the Fool's tread
Too near to where they lay,
They lifted neither voice nor head,
But took themselves away.
No water broke, no pinion whirred,
There went no warning call.
The steely, sheltering rushes stirred
A little, that was all.
Only the osiers understood,
And the drowned meadows spied
What else than wreckage of a flood
Stole outward on that tide.
But the far beaches saw their ranks
Gather and greet and grow
By myriads on the naked banks
Watching their sign to go;
Till, with a roar of wings that churned
The shivering shoals to foam,
Flight after flight took air and turned
To find a safer home;
And, far below their steadfast wedge,
They heard (and hastened on)
Men thresh and clamour through the sedge

Lost manor where I walk continually
A ghost, while yet in woman's flesh and blood;
Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers
And gliding steadfast down your corridors
I come by nightly custom to this room,
And even on sultry afternoons I come
Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory.

Empty, unless for a huge bed of state
Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry
(A puppet theatre where malignant fancy
Peoples the wings with fear). At my right hand
A ravelled bell-pull hangs in readiness
To summon me from attic glooms above
Service of elder ghosts; here at my left
A sullen pier-glass cracked from side to side
Scorns to present the face as do new mirrors
With a lying flush, but shows it melancholy
And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors.<...

        By Mr. Doddington, Afterwards Lord Melcombe.


        --Quæ censet amiculus, ut si
        Cæcus iter monstrare velit

                    HOR.


Though strength of genius, by experience taught,
Gives thee to sound the depths of human thought,
To trace the various workings of the mind,
And rule the secret springs, that rule mankind;
(Rare gift!) yet, Walpole, wilt thou condescend
To listen, if thy unexperienc'd friend
Can aught of use impart, though void of skill,
And win attention by sincere good-will;
For friendship, sometimes, want of parts supplies,
The heart may furnish what the head denies.
    As when the rapid Rhone, o'er swelling tides,
To grace old ocean's court, in triumph rides,
Tho' rich his source, he drains a th...

Bright on the banners of lily and rose
Lo! the last sun of our century sets!
Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on our foes,
All but her friendships the nation forgets
All but her friends and their welcome forgets!
These are around her; but where are her foes?
Lo, while the sun of her century sets,
Peace with her garlands of lily and rose!

Welcome! a shout like the war trumpet's swell
Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around
Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell;
Welcome! the walls of her temple resound!
Hark! the gray walls of her temple resound
Fade the far voices o'er hillside and dell;
Welcome! still whisper the echoes around;
Welcome I still trembles on Liberty's bell!

Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea
Yours are the garlan...

I am now, what joy to hear it!

Of the old magician rid;
And henceforth shall ev'ry spirit

Do whate'er by me is bid;

I have watch'd with rigour

All he used to do,

And will now with vigour

Work my wonders too.


Wander, wander

Onward lightly,

So that rightly

Flow the torrent,

And with teeming waters yonder

In the bath discharge its current!

And now come, thou well-worn broom,

And thy wretched form bestir;
Thou hast ever served as groom,

So fulfil my pleasure, sir!

On two legs now stand,

With a head on top;

Waterpail in hand,

Haste, and do not stop!


Wander, wander

Onward lightly,

So t...

He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes, you may trace his footsteps now,
On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill’s withered brow.
He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth,
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth.

He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! from the frozen Labrador,
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o’er,
Where the fisherman’s sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless forms below
In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues grow

He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes on the rushing Northern blast,
And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful breath went past.
With an unscorched wing he has ...

Since there is excitement
In suffering for a woman,
Let him burn on.
The dust in a wolf's eyes
Is balm of flowers to the wolf
When a flock of sheep has raised it.

From the Arabic.

What though the Eden morns were sweet with song
Passing all sweetness that our thought can reach;
Crushing its flowers noon's chariot moved along
In brightness far transcending mortal speech;
Yet in the twilight shades did God appear,
Oh welcome shadows so that He draw near.

Prosperity is flushed with Papal ease
And grants indulgences to pride of word,
Robing our soul in pomp and vanities,
Ah! no fit dwelling for our gentle Lord;
Grief rends those draperies of pride and sin,
And so our Lord will deign to enter in.

Then carefully we curb each thought of wrong,
We walk more softly, with more reverent feet -
As in His presence chamber, hush our tongue,
And in the holy quiet, solemn, sweet,
We feel His smile, we hear His voice so low,
So we can bl...