Courage

Fluttering spread thy purple pinions,
    Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart:
I a slave in thy dominions;
    Nature must give way to art.

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming
    Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming
    All beneath yon flowery rocks.

Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping
    Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth;
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
    Gored with unrelenting tooth.

Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
    Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Sooth my ever-waking slumbers:
    Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.

Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,
    Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
    Watering soft Elysian plains.

Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
    Gilding my...

Not all my treasure hath the bandit Time
    Locked in his glimmering caverns of the Past:
Fair women dead and friendships of old rhyme,
    And noble dreams that had to end at last: -
Ah! these indeed; and from youth's sacristy
    Full many a holy relic hath he torn,
Vessels of mystic faith God filled for me,
    Holding them up to Him in life's young morn.

All these are mine no more - Time hath them all,
    Time and his adamantine gaoler Death:
Despoilure vast - yet seemeth it but small,
    When unto thee I turn, thy bloom and breath
Filling with light and incense the last shrine,
    Innermost, inaccessible, - yea, thine.

This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.

Once he lived a schoolmaster
With a stark, denying look,
A string of scholars went in fear
Of his great birch and his great book.

Like the clangour of a bell,
Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet,
That is how he learnt so well
To take the roses for his meat.

By duty bound, and not by custome led
To celebrate the praises of the dead,
My mournfull mind, sore prest, in trembling verse
Presents my Lamentations at his Herse,
Who was my Father, Guide, Instructor too,
To whom I ought whatever I could doe:
Nor is't Relation near my hand shall tye;
For who more cause to boast his worth then I?
Who heard or saw, observ'd or knew him better?
Or who alive then I, a greater debtor?
Let malice bite, and envy knaw its fill,
He was my Father, and Ile praise him still.
Nor was his name, or life lead so obscure
That pitty might some Trumpeters procure.
Who after death might make him falsly seem
Such as in life, no man could justly deem.
Well known and lov'd, where ere he liv'd, by most
Both in his native, and in foreign coast,...

1.

Parent of golden dreams, Romance!
Auspicious Queen of childish joys,
Who lead'st along, in airy dance,
Thy votive train of girls and boys;
At length, in spells no longer bound,
I break the fetters of my youth;
No more I tread thy mystic round,
But leave thy realms for those of Truth.


2.

And yet 'tis hard to quit the dreams
Which haunt the unsuspicious soul,
Where every nymph a goddess seems,
Whose eyes through rays immortal roll;
While Fancy holds her boundless reign,
And all assume a varied hue;
When Virgins seem no longer vain,
And even Woman's smiles are true.


3.

And must we own thee, but a name,
And from thy hall of clouds descend?
Nor find a Sylph in every dame,
A Pylades [1]<...

I met Hosea Job on Randolph Street
Who said to me: "I'm going for the train,
I want you with me."

    And it happened then
My mind was hard, as muscles of the back
Grow hard resisting cold or shock or strain
And need the osteopath to be made supple,
To give the nerves and streams of life a chance.
Hosea Job was just the osteopath
To loose, relax my mood. And so I said
"All right" - and went.

        Hosea was a man
Whom nothing touched of danger, or of harm.
His life was just a rare-bit dream, where some one
Seems like to fall before a truck or train -
Instead he walks across them. Or you see
Shadows of falling things, great buildings topple,
Pianos skid like bulls from hellish corners
And chase the oblivious fool who stands and smiles.

Hymn At Cock-Crow (Hymnus Ad Galli Cantum)


        Ales diei nuntius
    lucem propinquam praecinit;
    nos excitator mentium
    iam Christus ad vitam vocat.

        Auferte, clamat, lectulos
    aegros, soporos, desides:
    castique recti ac sobrii
    vigilate, iam sum proximus.

        Post solis ortum fulgidi
    serum est cubile spernere,
    ni parte noctis addita
    tempus labori adieceris.

        Vox ista, qua strepunt aves
    stantes sub ipso culmine
    paulo ante quam lux emicet,
    nostri figura est iudicis.

        Tectos tenebris horridis
    stratisque opertos segnibus
    suadet quietem linquere
    iam iamque venturo die.

        Ut, cum coruscis flatibus
    aurora...

When white and ruby dawn among the rakes
Breaks in, she's with the harrying Ideal,
And by some strange retributive appeal
Within the sleepy brute, an angel wakes.

The perfect blue of Spiritual Skies
For the lost man who dreams and suffers, this
Pierces him, fascinates like the abyss.
And so, dear Goddess, lucid, pure and wise,

Over debris the orgies leave behind
Your memory, more rosy, more divine
Constantly flickers in my vision's sight.

The sun has blackened candles of the night;
Your phantom does the same, o conquering one,
Resplendent soul, of the immortal sun!

Up this green woodland-ride let’s softly rove,
And list the nightingale - she dwells just here.
Hush ! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear
The noise might drive her from her home of love ;
For here I’ve heard her many a merry year -
At morn, at eve, nay, all the live-long day,
As though she lived on song. This very spot,
Just where that old-man’s-beard all wildly trails
Rude arbours o’er the road, and stops the way -
And where that child its blue-bell flowers hath got,
Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails -
There have I hunted like a very boy,
Creeping on hands and knees through matted thorn
To find her nest, and see her feed her young.
And vainly did I many hours employ :
All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn.
And where those crimping fern-lea...

Over the meadows, and down the stream,

And through the garden-walks straying,
He plucks the flowers that fairest seem;

His throbbing heart brooks no delaying.
His maiden then comes oh, what ecstasy!
Thy flowers thou giv'st for one glance of her eye!

The gard'ner next door o'er the hedge sees the youth:
"I'm not such a fool as that, in good truth;
My pleasure is ever to cherish each flower,
And see that no birds my fruit e'er devour.
But when 'tis ripe, your money, good neighbour!
'Twas not for nothing I took all this labour!"
And such, methinks, are the author-tribe.

The one his pleasures around him strews,

That his friends, the public, may reap, if they choose;
The other would fain make them all subscribe,

I.

    Ah, fading joy! how quickly art thou past!
        Yet we thy ruin haste.
    As if the cares of human life were few,
        We seek out new:
    And follow Fate, which would too fast pursue.
    See how on every bough the birds express,
    In their sweet notes, their happiness.
    They all enjoy, and nothing spare;
    But on their mother Nature lay their care:
    Why then should man, the lord of all below,
        Such troubles choose to know,
    As none of all his subjects undergo?
    Hark, hark, the waters fall, fall, fall,
    And with a murmuring sound
    Dash, dash upon the ground,
        To gentle slumbers call.

II.

    I look'd, and saw within the book of fate,
        When many days did lour,
     ...

Her courts are by the flux of flaming ways,
Between the rivers and the illumined sky
Whose fervid depths reverberate from on high
Fierce lustres mingled in a fiery haze.
They mark it inland; blithe and fair of face
Her suitors follow, guessing by the glare
Beyond the hilltops in the evening air
How bright the cressets at her portals blaze.
On the pure fronts Defeat ere many a day
Falls like the soot and dirt on city-snow;
There hopes deferred lie sunk in piteous seams.
Her paths are disillusion and decay,
With ruins piled and unapparent woe,
The graves of Beauty and the wreck of dreams.

I.

Where the snow-world of the mountains
Fronts the sea-like world of sward,
And encamped along the prairies
Tower the white peaks heavenward;
Where they stand by dawn rose-coloured
Or dim-silvered by the stars,
And behind their shadowed portals
Evening draws her lurid bars,
Lies a country whose sweet grasses
Richly clothe the rolling plain;
All its swelling upland pastures
Speak of Plenty's happy reign;
There the bison herds in autumn
Roamed wide sunlit solitudes,
Seamed with many an azure river
Bright in burnished poplar woods.


II.

Night-dews pearled the painted hide-tents,
"Moyas" named, that on the mead
Sheltered dark-eyed women wearing
Braided hair and woven bead.
Never man had seen their lodges,
...

Strange are the ways that her feet have trod
    Since first she was set in the path of duty,
Finished and fair by the hand of God,
    To carry her message of love and beauty.
Delicate creature of light and shade,
    She gleamed like an opal, on wide worlds under:
And earth looked up to her half afraid,
    While heaven looked down at her, full of wonder.

Flame of the comet and mist of the moon,
    And ray of the sun all mingled in her.
And the heart of her asked but a single boon -
    That love should seek her, and find her, and win her.
She grasped the scope of the First Intent
    That made her kingdom FOR HER, no other,
And joyfully into her place she went -
    The primal mate, and the primal mother.

Large was that kingdom and vast her sph...

Rhyme, the rack of finest wits,
That expresseth but by fits
True conceit,
Spoiling senses of their treasure,
Cozening judgment with a measure,
But false weight;
Wresting words from their true calling,
Propping verse for fear of falling
To the ground;
Jointing syllabes, drowning letters,
Fast'ning vowels as with fetters
They were bound!
Soon as lazy thou wert known,
All good poetry hence was flown,
And art banish'd.
For a thousand years together
All Parnassus' green did wither,
And wit vanish'd.
Pegasus did fly away,
At the wells no Muse did stay,
But bewail'd
So to see the fountain dry,
And Apollo's music die,
All light failed!
Starveling rhymes did fill the stage;
Not a poet in an age
Worth crowning;
Not ...

(The poem shows the Master, with his work done, singing to free his heart in Heaven.)

This poem is intended to be half said, half sung, very softly, to the well-known tune: -

            "Last night I lay a-sleeping,
            There came a dream so fair,
            I stood in Old Jerusalem
            Beside the temple there, - " etc.

Yet this tune is not to be fitted on, arbitrarily.    It is here given to suggest the manner of handling rather than determine it.


                    # To be sung. #
    I heard Immanuel singing
    Within his own good lands,
    I saw him bend above his harp.
    I watched his wandering hands
    Lost amid the harp-strings;
    Sweet, sweet I heard him play.
    His wounds were altogether healed.
   ...

O word and thing most beautiful!
Our yesterday was cold and dull,
Gray mists obscured the setting sun,
Its evening wept with sobbing rain;
But to and fro, mid shrouding night,
Some healing angel swift has run,
And all is fresh and fair again.

O, word and thing most beautiful!
The hearts, which were of cares so full,
The tired hands, the tired feet,
So glad of night, are glad of morn,--
Where are the clouds of yesterday?
The world is good, the world is sweet,
And life is new and hope re-born.

O, word and thing most beautiful!
O coward soul and sorrowful,
Which sighs to note the ebbing light
Give place to evening's shadowy gray!
What are these things but parables,--
That darkness heals the wrongs of day,
And dawning clears all mis...

"THROUGH me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.

"All hope abandon ye who enter here."

Such characters in colour dim I mark'd
Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:
Whereat I thus: "Master, these words import
Hard meaning."    He as one prepar'd replied:
"Here thou must all distrust behind thee leave;
Here be vile fear extinguish'd. We are come
Where I have told thee we shall see the souls
To misery doom'd, who intellectual good
Have lost."    And when his hand he had stretch'd ...