Courage

I
Art thou indeed among these,
Thou of the tyrannous crew,
The kingdoms fed upon blood,
O queen from of old of the seas,
England, art thou of them too
That drink of the poisonous flood,
That hide under poisonous trees?

II
Nay, thy name from of old,
Mother, was pure, or we dreamed
Purer we held thee than this,
Purer fain would we hold;
So goodly a glory it seemed,
A fame so bounteous of bliss,
So more precious than gold.

III
A praise so sweet in our ears,
That thou in the tempest of things
As a rock for a refuge shouldst stand,
In the bloodred river of tears
Poured forth for the triumph of kings;
A safeguard, a sheltering land,
In the thunder and torrent of years.

IV
Strangers came gladly to thee,

I' piansi, or canto; che 'l celeste lume.

AT HER RETURN, HIS SORROWS VANISH.


    I wept, but now I sing; its heavenly light
That living sun conceals not from my view,
But virtuous love therein revealeth true
His holy purposes and precious might;
Whence, as his wont, such flood of sorrow springs
To shorten of my life the friendless course,
Nor bridge, nor ford, nor oar, nor sails have force
To forward mine escape, nor even wings.
But so profound and of so full a vein
My suff'ring is, so far its shore appears,
Scarcely to reach it can e'en thought contrive:
Nor palm, nor laurel pity prompts to gain,
But tranquil olive, and the dark sky clears,
And checks my grief and wills me to survive.

MACGREGOR.

Love's worshippers alone can know
The thousand mysteries that are his;
His blazing torch, his twanging bow,
His blooming age are mysteries.
A charming science, but the day
Were all too short to con it o'er;
So take of me this little lay,
A sample of its boundless lore.

As once, beneath the fragrant shade
Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played,
A quarrel rose betwixt the pair.
Love said the gods should do him right,
But Folly vowed to do it then,
And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight,
So hard he never saw again.

His lovely mother's grief was deep,
She called for vengeance on the deed;
A beauty does not vainly weep,
Nor coldly does a mother plead.
A shade came o'er the eternal bliss
That ...

Does pleasant spring return once more?
Does earth her happy youth regain?
Sweet suns green hills are shining o'er;
Soft brooklets burst their icy chain:
Upon the blue translucent river
Laughs down an all-unclouded day,
The winged west winds gently quiver,
The buds are bursting from the spray;
While birds are blithe on every tree;
The Oread from the mountain-shore
Sighs, "Lo! thy flowers come back to thee
Thy child, sad mother, comes no more!"

Alas! how long an age it seems
Since all the earth I wandered over,
And vainly, Titan, tasked thy beams
The loved the lost one to discover!
Though all may seek yet none can call
Her tender presence back to me
The sun, with eyes detecting all,
Is blind one vanished form to see.
Hast thou, O Zeus! ...

Type of two mighty continents! combining
The strength of Europe with the warmth and glow
Of Asian song and prophecy, the shining
Of Orient splendors over Northern snow!
Who shall receive him? Who, unblushing, speak
Welcome to him, who, while he strove to break
The Austrian yoke from Magyar necks, smote off
At the same blow the fetters of the serf,
Rearing the altar of his Fatherland
On the firm base of freedom, and thereby
Lifting to Heaven a patriot's stainless hand,
Mocked not the God of Justice with a lie!
Who shall be Freedom's mouthpiece? Who shall give
Her welcoming cheer to the great fugitive?
Not he who, all her sacred trusts betraying,
Is scourging back to slavery's hell of pain
The swarthy Kossuths of our land again!
Not he whose utterance now f...

Sometimes at night, when I sit and write,
    I hear the strangest things, -
As my brain grows hot with burning thought,
    That struggles for form and wings,
I can hear the beat of my swift blood's feet,
    As it speeds with a rush and a whir
From heart to brain and back again,
    Like a race-horse under the spur.

With my soul's fine ear I listen and hear
    The tender Silence speak,
As it leans on the breast of Night to rest,
    And presses his dusky cheek.
And the darkness turns in its sleep, and yearns
    For something that is kin;
And I hear the hiss of a scorching kiss,
    As it folds and fondles Sin.

In its hurrying race through leagues of space,
    I can hear the Earth catch breath,
As it heaves and moans, and shudders and...

Bless God, he went as soldiers,
His musket on his breast;
Grant, God, he charge the bravest
Of all the martial blest.

Please God, might I behold him
In epauletted white,
I should not fear the foe then,
I should not fear the fight.

I tore this weed from the rank, dark soil
    Where it grew in the monkish time,
I trimmed it close and set it again
    In a border of modern rhyme.

I.
Long years ago, when the Devil was loose
    And faith was sorely tried,
Three monks of Basle went out to walk
    In the quiet eventide.

A breeze as pure as the breath of Heaven
    Blew fresh through the cloister-shades,
A sky as glad as the smile of Heaven
    Blushed rose o'er the minster-glades.

But scorning the lures of summer and sense,
    The monks passed on in their walk;
Their eyes were abased, their senses slept,
    Their souls were in their talk.

In the tough grim talk of the monkish days
    They hammered and slashed about, -
Dry husks of logic, - old scrap...

You have builded your ships in the sun-lands,
    And launched them with song and wine;
They are boweled with your stanchest engines,
    And masted with bravest pine;
You have met in your closet councils,
    With your plans and your prayers to God
For a fortunate wind to waft you
    Where never a foot has trod.

And now you follow the polar star
    To the seat of the old Norse Kings,
Past the death-white halls of Valhalla,
    Where the Norn to the tempest sings--
Follow the steady needle
    That cleaves to its steady star
To the uttermost realms of Odin
    And the warlike thunderer, Thor.

Far through the icy silence,
    Where the glacier's teeth hang white,
And even the sun-god Baldur,
    Looks down in vague affright,
Yo...

By the blue sky of a clear vision,
And by the white light of a great illumination,
And by the blood-red of brotherhood,
Draw the sword, O Republic!
Draw the sword!

For the light which is England,
And the resurrection which is Russia,
And the sorrow which is France,
And for peoples everywhere
Crying in bondage,
And in poverty!

You have been a leaven in the earth, O Republic!
And a watch-fire on the hill-top scattering sparks;
And an eagle clanging his wings on a cloud-wrapped promontory:
Now the leaven must be stirred,
And the brands themselves carried and touched
To the jungles and the black-forests.
Now the eaglets are grown, they are calling,
They are crying to each other from the peaks -
They are flapping their passionate wings in...

        Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter
        We drenched the altars of Love's sacred grove,
        Shaking to earth green fruits, impatient after
        The launching of the colored moths of Love.
        Love's proper myrtle and his mother's zone
        We bound about our irreligious brows,
        And fettered him with garlands of our own,
        And spread a banquet in his frugal house.
        Not yet the god has spoken; but I fear
        Though we should break our bodies in his flame,
        And pour our blood upon his altar, here
        Henceforward is a grove without a name,
        A pasture to the shaggy goats of Pan,
        Whence flee forever a woman and a man.

A nightingale, that all day long
Had cheer’d the village with his song,
Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
Nor yet when eventide was ended,
Began to feel, as well he might,
The keen demands of appetite;
When, looking eagerly around,
He spied far off, upon the ground,
A something shining in the dark,
And knew the glowworm by his spark;
So stooping down from hawthorn top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued his thus, right eloquent—
Did you admire my lamp, quoth he,
As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong
As much as I to spoil your song;
For ‘twas the self-same Power divine
Taught you to sing, and me to shine;
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the nigh...

If seasons, like the human race, had souls,
Then two artistic spirits live within
The Chameleon mind of Autumn - these,
The Poet's mentor and the Painter's guide.
The myriad-thoughted phases of the mind
Are truly represented by the hues
That thrill the forests with prophetic fire.
And what could painter's skill compared to these?
What palette ever held the flaming tints
That on these leafy hieroglyphs foretell
How set the ebbing currents of the year?
What poet's page was ever like to this,
Or told the lesson of life's waning days
More forcibly, with more of natural truth,
Than yon red maples, or these poplars, white
As the pale shroud that wraps some human corse?
And then, again, the spirit of a King,
Clothed with that majesty most monarchs lack,
Mig...

My sweetheart was naked, knowing my desire,
she wore only her tinkling jewellery,
whose splendour yields her the rich conquering fire
of Moorish slave-girls in the days of their beauty.

When, dancing, it gives out its sharp sound of mockery,
that glistening world of metal and stone,
I am ravished by ecstasy, love like fury
those things where light mingles with sound.

So she lay there, let herself be loved,
and, from the tall bed, she smiled with delight
on my love deep and sweet as the sea is moved,
rising to her as toward a cliff’s height.

Like a tamed tigress, her eyes fixed on me
with a vague dreamy air, she tried out her poses,
so wantonly and so innocently,
it gave a new charm to her metamorphoses:

and her arm and her leg, and her ...

Try as he will, no man breaks wholly loose
From his first love, no matter who she be.
Oh, was there ever sailor free to choose,
That didn't settle somewhere near the sea?

Myself, it don't excite me nor amuse
To watch a pack o' shipping on the sea;
But I can understand my neighbour's views
From certain things which have occured to me.

Men must keep touch with things they used to use
To earn their living, even when they are free;
And so come back upon the least excuse,
Same as the sailor settled near the sea.

He knows he's never going on no cruise,
He knows he's done and finished with the sea;
And yet he likes to feel she's there to use,
If he should ask her, as she used to be.

Even though she cost him all he had to lose,
Even though...

Ye too, dim watchfires of some darkling hour,
Whose fame forlorn time saves not nor proclaims
For ever, but forgetfulness defames
And darkness and the shadow of death devour,
Lift up ye too your light, put forth your power,
Let the far twilight feel your soft small flames
And smile, albeit night name not even their names,
Ghost by ghost passing, flower blown down on flower:
That sweet-tongued shadow, like a star’s that passed
Singing, and light was from its darkness cast
To paint the face of Painting fair with praise:1
And that wherein forefigured smiles the pure
Fraternal face of Wordsworth’s Elidure
Between two child-faced masks of merrier days.2

Trained in the holy art whose lifted shield
Wards off the darts a never-slumbering foe,
By hearth and wayside lurking, waits to throw,
Oppression taught his helpful arm to wield
The slayer's weapon: on the murderous field
The fiery bolt he challenged laid him low,
Seeking its noblest victim. Even so
The charter of a nation must be sealed!
The healer's brow the hero's honors crowned,
From lowliest duty called to loftiest deed.
Living, the oak-leaf wreath his temples bound;
Dying, the conqueror's laurel was his meed,
Last on the broken ramparts' turf to bleed
Where Freedom's victory in defeat was found.

From Bolton's old monastic tower
The bells ring loud with gladsome power;
The sun shines bright; the fields are gay
With people in their best array
Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf,
Along the banks of crystal Wharf,
Through the Vale retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy.
And, up among the moorlands, see
What sprinklings of blithe company!
Of lasses and of shepherd grooms,
That down the steep hills force their way,
Like cattle through the budded brooms;
Path, or no path, what care they?
And thus in joyous mood they hie
To Bolton's mouldering Priory.
What would they there? Full fifty years
That sumptuous Pile, with all its peers,
Too harshly hath been doomed to taste
The bitterness of wrong and waste:
Its courts are ravaged; bu...