Courage

O beautiful Stars, when you see me go
    Hither and thither, in search of love,
Do you think me faithless, who gleam and glow
    Serene and fixed in the blue above?
    O Stars, so golden, it is not so.

But there is a garden I dare not see,
    There is a place where I fear to go,
Since the charm and glory of life to me
    The brown earth covered there, long ago.
    O Stars, you saw it, you know, you know.

Hither and thither I wandering go,
    With aimless haste and wearying fret;
In a search for pleasure and love?    Not so,
    Seeking desperately to forget.
    You see so many, O Stars, you know.

"I suppose she was right in rejecting my suit,
But why did she kick me down stairs?"
                        Halleck's "Discarded."




The wing of my spirit is broken,
    My day-star of hope has declined;
For a month not a word have I spoken
    That's either polite or refined.
My mind's like the sky in bad weather,
    When mist-clouds around us are curled:
And, viewing myself altogether,
    I'm the veriest wretch in the world!

I wander about like a vagrant--
    I spend half my time in the street;
My conduct's improper and flagrant,
    For I quarrel with all that I meet.
My dress, too, is wholly neglected,
    My hat I pull over my brow,
And I look like a fellow suspected
    Of wishing to kick up a row.

In ...

O wayward rose, why dost thou wreathe so high,
Wasting thyself in sweet-breath'd ecstasy?

"The pulses of the wind my life uplift,
And through my sprays I feel the sunlight sift;

"And all my fibres, in a quick consent
Entwined, aspire to fill their heavenward bent.

"I feel the shaking of the far-off sea,
And all things growing blend their life with me:

"When men and women on me look, there glows
Within my veins a life not of the rose.

"Then let me grow, until I touch the sky,
And let me grow and grow until I die!"

So, every year, the sweet rose shooteth higher,
And scales the roof upon its wings of fire,

And pricks the air, in lovely discontent,
With thorns that question still of its intent.

But when it reached th...

Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing
Under the sky's gray arch;
Smiling, I watch the shaken elm-boughs, knowing
It is the wind of March.

Between the passing and the coming season,
This stormy interlude
Gives to our winter-wearied hearts a reason
For trustful gratitude.

Welcome to waiting ears its harsh forewarning
Of light and warmth to come,
The longed-for joy of Nature's Easter morning,
The earth arisen in bloom.

In the loud tumult winter's strength is breaking;
I listen to the sound,
As to a voice of resurrection, waking
To life the dead, cold ground.

Between these gusts, to the soft lapse I hearken
Of rivulets on their way;
I see these tossed and naked tree-tops darken
With the fresh leaves of May.

The day had been a day of wind and storm;
The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,
And stooping from the zenith bright and warm
Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last.
I stood upon the upland slope, and cast
My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene,
Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast,
And hills o'er hills lifted their heads of green,
With pleasant vales scooped out and villages between.

The rain-drops glistened on the trees around,
Whose shadows on the tall grass were not stirred,
Save when a shower of diamonds, to the ground,
Was shaken by the flight of startled bird;
For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard
About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung
And gossiped, as he hastened ocean-ward;
To the gray oak the squirrel, ...

    "Wo worth the chase. Wo worth the day,
    That cost thy life, my gallant grey!" - Scott


The Hunter stooped o'er his dying steed
    With sad dejected mien,
And softly stroked its glossy neck,
    Lustrous as silken sheen;
With iron will and nerve of steel,
    And pale lips tight compressed,
He kept the tears from eyes that long
    Were strange to such a guest.

Thou'rt dying now, my faithful one,
    Alas! 'tis easy known -
Thy neck would arch beneath my touch,
    Thou'dst brighten at my tone;
But turn not thus thy restless eyes
    Upon my saddened brow,
Nor look with such imploring gaze -
    I cannot help thee now.

No more we'll bound o'er dew gemmed sward
    At break of summer morn,
Or follow on, t...

She comes not with the conscious grace
    Of gentle, winsome womanhood,
Nor yet, withal, the flaunting face
    Of men and women understood,
But rather as a thing apart,
    A wind-blown petal of a rose,
A specter with a specter's heart
    That cometh once--and goes.

Her eyes some trace of cold, white light
    Within their haunted depths still hold,
Though hunger's fever made them bright,
    And lack of pity made them cold.
We know her when she passes by,
    Whom no one loves or chides or greets--
The woman with the cold, bright eye--
    Our sister of the streets.

We know the tawdry arts she tries,
    The tint of cheek, the gold of hair,
To mimic nature for the eyes
    Of those who scorn her paltry care,
And spurn those ...

    They will find in this life who are grieved with its gladness
        No songs for the heart and no hopes for the soul,
    But will faint in the glooms where the dirges of sadness
        In tremulous murmurs of wretchedness roll;
    For the sweets of this earth never lavish their kisses
        Where lives in the valleys of rapture repine;
    In the tortures they mourn who denounce all the blisses,--
        They weep in the shadow that rail at the shine.

    In the fields that are fair with the blooms of the clover,
        No garlands are grown for the arbors of shade
    Where the woes of the wood in their darkness hang over
        The grasses that wave with the winds of the glade;
    From the chimes of the breezes there echo no measures
        That gladd...

I'm dead.
Officially I'm dead. Their hope is past.
How long I stood as missing! Now, at last
        I'm dead.
Look in my face - no likeness can you see,
No tiny trace of him they knew as "me".
How terrible the change!
Even my eyes are strange.
So keyed are they to pain,
That if I chanced to meet
My mother in the street
She'd look at me in vain.

When she got home I think she'd say:
"I saw the saddest sight to-day -
A poilu with no face at all.
Far better in the fight to fall
Than go through life like that, I think.
Poor fellow! how he made me shrink.
No face. Just eyes that seemed to stare
At me with anguish and despair.
This ghastly war! I'm almost cheered
To think my son who disappeared,
My boy so handsome an...

When mighty issues loom before us, all
The petty great men of the day seem small,
Like pigmies standing in a blaze of light
Before some grim majestic mountain-height.
War, with its bloody and impartial hand,
Reveals the hidden weakness of a land,
Uncrowns the heroes trusting Peace has made
Of men whose honour is a thing of trade,
And turns the searchlight full on many a place
Where proud conventions long have masked disgrace.
O lovely Peace! as thou art fair be wise.
Demand great men, and great men shall arise
To do thy bidding.    Even as warriors come,
Swift at the call of bugle and of drum,
So at the voice of Peace, imperative
As bugle's call, shall heroes spring to live
For country and for thee.    In every land,
In every age, men are what times deman...

From what sad star I know not, but I found
    Myself new-born below the coppice rail,
No bigger than the dewdrops and as round,
    In a soft sward, no cattle might assail.

And so I gathered mightiness and grew
    With this one dream kindling in me, that I
Should never cease from conquering light and dew
    Till my white splendour touched the trembling sky.

A century of blue and stilly light
    Bowed down before me, the dew came again,
The moon my sibyl worshipped through the night,
    The sun returned and long abode; but then

Hoarse drooping darkness hung me with a shroud
    And switched at me with shrivelled leaves in scorn.
Red morning stole beneath a grinning cloud,
    And suddenly clambering over dike and thorn

A half-moon h...

I (Bread and Music)

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, belovd,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always,
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.

II

My heart has become as hard as a city street,
The horses trample upon it, it sings like iron,
All day long and all night long they beat,
They ring like the...

When the beautiful mountain ash is turning -
    As lovely a sight as the eyes desire;
When the leaves of the sumac bush are burning,
    Like the steady flame of a winter fire;
When the weeds by the roadside all grow golden,
    When maples are glowing and asters gleam,
It is then that the new is changed to the olden,
    And back to my heart comes the past like a dream.

Like a mirage I see the blue haze o'er me,
    The City of Youth that I left behind.
Oh! whitely its turrets are gleaming before me,
    And out of the window lean faces kind.
And I hear the echo of jubilant voices;
    There are cheeks of beauty and eyes of truth:
And every pulse in my heart rejoices -
    There's no other place like the City of Youth.

And lo! the City is full of...

Where olive leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew,
There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of Peru.
Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air,
Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her glossy hair;
And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that shady nook,
As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound of hidden brook.

'Tis a song of love and valour, in the noble Spanish tongue,
That once upon the sunny plains of old Castile was sung;
When, from their mountain holds, on the Moorish rout below,
Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and swept away the foe.
A while that melody is still, and then breaks forth anew
A wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom and Peru.

For she has bound the sword to a youthful lover's side,
And sent him to the...

Dear Mother-Earth
Of Titan birth,
Yon hills are your large breasts, and often I
Have climbed to their top-nipples, fain and dry
To drink my mother's-milk so near the sky.

O ye hill-stains,
Red, for all rains!
The blood that made you has all bled for us,
The hearts that paid you are all dead for us,
The trees that shade you groan with lead, for us!

And O, hill-sides,
Like giants' brides
Ye sleep in ravine-rumpled draperies,
And weep your springs in tearful memories
Of days that stained your robes with stains like these!

Sleep on, ye hills!
Weep on, ye rills!
The stainers have decreed the stains shall stay.
They chain the hands might wash the stains away.
They wait with cold hearts till we "rue the day".

O Mother-Earth...

Not always as the whirlwind's rush
On Horeb's mount of fear,
Not always as the burning bush
To Midian's shepherd seer,
Nor as the awful voice which came
To Israel's prophet bards,
Nor as the tongues of cloven flame,
Nor gift of fearful words,

Not always thus, with outward sign
Of fire or voice from Heaven,
The message of a truth divine,
The call of God is given!
Awaking in the human heart
Love for the true and right,
Zeal for the Christian's better part,
Strength for the Christian's fight.

Nor unto manhood's heart alone
The holy influence steals
Warm with a rapture not its own,
The heart of woman feels!
As she who by Samaria's wall
The Saviour's errand sought,
As those who with the fervent Paul
And meek Aquila wro...

Down slant the moonbeams to the floor
Through the garret's scented air,
And show a thin-spoked spinning-wheel,
Standing ten years and more
Far from the hearth-stone's woe and weal, -
The ghost of a lost day's care!

And over the dreaming spinning-wheel,
That has not stirred so long,
The weaving spiders spin a veil,
A silvery shroud for its human zeal
And usefulness, with their fingers pale,
The shadowy lights among.

See! in the moonlight cold and gray
A thoughtful maiden stands;
And though she blames not overmuch
With her sweet lips the great world's way,
Yet sad and slow she stoops to touch
The still wheel with her hands.

"Forsaken wheel! when you first came
To clothe young hearts and old,
Our ancestors were glad to wear

(For Richardson Little Wright)



There was a gentle hostler
(And blessed be his name!)
He opened up the stable
The night Our Lady came.
Our Lady and Saint Joseph,
He gave them food and bed,
And Jesus Christ has given him
A glory round his head.

So let the gate swing open
However poor the yard,
Lest weary people visit you
And find their passage barred;
Unlatch the door at midnight
And let your lantern's glow
Shine out to guide the traveler's feet
To you across the snow.

There was a courteous hostler
(He is in Heaven to-night)
He held Our Lady's bridle
And helped her to alight;
He spread clean straw before her
Whereon she might lie down,
And Jesus Christ has given him
An everlasting crown.
...