Courage

There’s something in a noble boy,
A brave, free-hearted, careless one,
With his unchecked, unbidden joy,
His dread of books and love of fun,
And in his clear and ready smile,
Unshaded by a thought of guile,
And unrepressed by sadness,
Which brings me to my childhood back,
As if I trod its very track,
And felt its very gladness.
And yet it is not in his play,
When every trace of thought is lost,
And not when you would call him gay,
That his bright presence thrills me most.
His shout may ring upon the hill,
His voice be echoed in the hall,
His merry laugh like music trill,
And I unheeding hear it all;
For, like the wrinkles on my brow,
I scarcely notice such things now.
But when, amid the earnest game,
He stops as if he music heard,

On the mountain, in the woodland,
In the shaded secret dell,
I have seen thee, I have met thee!
In the soft ambrosial hours of night,
In darkness silent sweet
I beheld thee, I was with thee,
I was thine, and thou wert mine!

When I gazed in palace-chambers,
When I trod the rustic dance,
Earthly maids were fair to look on,
Earthly maidens’ hearts were kind:
Fair to look on, fair to love:
But the life, the life to me,
’Twas the death, the death to them,
In the spying, prying, prating
Of a curious cruel world.
At a touch, a breath they fade,
They languish, droop, and die;
Yea, the juices change to sourness,
And the tints to clammy brown;
And the softness unto foulness,
And the odour unto stench.
Let alone and leave to bloom;

Helen, in her silent room,
Weaves upon the upright loom;
Weaves a mantle rich and dark,
Purpled over, deep. But mark
How she scatters o'er the wool
Woven shapes, till it is full
Of men that struggle close, complex;
Short-clipp'd steeds with wrinkled necks
Arching high; spear, shield, and all
The panoply that doth recall
Mighty war; such war as e'en
For Helen's sake is waged, I ween.
Purple is the groundwork: good!
All the field is stained with blood -
Blood poured out for Helen's sake;
(Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake!)
But the shapes of men that pass
Are as ghosts within a glass,
Woven with whiteness of the swan,
Pale, sad memories, gleaming wan
From the garment's purple fold
Where Troy's tale is twined and told.
Well may Hele...

O soft enchantress, let me tell the truth
Of all the beauties decking out your youth!
I'll paint the charms for you to see
Of childhood married with maturity.

When you step out, your broad skirt sweeps the breeze
As if you were a ship on easy seas
Under full sail, that rolls along
In rhythm with a slow and languid song.

On your plump shoulders and your rounded neck
Your head parades itself with rare effect;
In a composed, triumphant style
You go your stately way, majestic child.

O soft enchantress, let me tell the truth
Of all the beauties decking out your youth!
I'll paint the charms for you to see
Of childhood married with maturity.

Your jutting bosom stretching out the moire,
Triumphant bosom, is a fine armoire
Whose bright...

Beyond the tumult and the proud acclaim,
    Beyond the circle where the glory beats
    With withering light upon the mighty seats,
They hear the far-resounding trump of fame;
On other lips they hear the one-loved name
    In vaunting or derision, and they weep
    To know that they shall never lull to sleep
Those tired heads, crowned with desolating flame.
Beyond the hot arena's baleful glow,
    Beyond the towering pomp they dimly see,
They sit and watch the fateful pageants go
    Through war's red arch, or up to Calvary,
The First Love still within their hearts impearled--
Mothers of all the masters of the world!

I am so weary with the burden old
Of foregone faults, and power of custom base,
That much I fear to perish from the ways,
And fall into my enemy's grim fold.
True, a high friend, to free me, not with gold,
Came, of ineffable and utmost grace--
Then straightway vanished from before my face,
So that in vain I strive him to behold.
But his voice yet comes echoing below:
O ye that labour, the way open lies!
Come unto me lest some one shut the gate!
--What heavenly grace--what love will--or what fate--
The pinions of a dove on me bestow
That I may rest, and from the earth arise?

Demeter sad! the wells of sorrow lay
Eternal gushing in thy lonely path.

Methinks I see her now - an awful shape
Tall o'er a dragon team in frenzied search
From Argive plains unto the jeweled shores
Of the remotest Ind, where Usha's hand
Tinged her grief-cloven brow with kindly touch,
And Savitar wheeled genial thro' the skies
O'er palmy regions of the faneless Brahm.

In melancholy search I see her roam
O'er the steep peaks of Himalayas keen
With the unmellowed frosts of Boreal storms,
Then back again with that wild mother woe
Writ in the anguished fire of her eyes, -
Back where old Atlas groans 'neath weight of worlds,
And the Cimmerian twilight glooms the soul.
Deep was her sleep in Persia's haunted vales,
Where many a languid Philomela moan...

        All day he drowses by the sail
        With dreams of her, and all night long
        The broken waters are at song
        Of how she lingers, wild and pale,
        When all the temple lights are dumb,
        And weaves her spells to make him come.

        The wide sea traversed, he will stand
        With straining eyes, until the shoal
        Green water from the prow shall roll
        Upon the yellow strip of sand--
        Searching some fern-hid tangled way
        Into the forest old and grey.

        Then he will leap upon the shore,
        And cast one look up at the sun,
        Over his loosened locks will run
        The dawn breeze, and a bird will pour
        Its rapture out to make life seem
        Too sweet to le...

I saw the spirit of the pines that spoke
With spirits of the ocean and the storm:
Against the tumult rose its tattered form,
Wild rain and darkness round it like a cloak.
Fearful it stood, limbed like some twisted oak,
Gesticulating with one giant arm,
Raised as in protest of the night's alarm,
Defiant still of some impending stroke.
Below it, awful in its majesty,
The spirit of the deep, with rushing locks,
Raved: and above it, lightning-clad and shod,
Thundered the tempest. Thus they stood, the three;
Terror around them; while, upon the rocks,
Destruction danced, mocking at man and God.

The noble Sire, fallen on evil days,
I saw, with hand uplifted, menacing, brandishing,
(Memories of old in abeyance, love and faith in abeyance,)
The insane knife toward the Mother of All.

The noble Son, on sinewy feet advancing,
I saw, out of the land of prairies, land of Ohio's waters, and of Indiana,
To the rescue, the stalwart giant, hurry his plenteous offspring,
Drest in blue, bearing their trusty rifles on their shoulders.

Then the Mother of All, with calm voice speaking,
As to you, Virginia, (I seemed to hear her say,) why strive against me, and why seek my life?
When you yourself forever provide to defend me?
For you provided me Washington, and now these also.

Dark is the night,
The fire burns faint and low,
Hours - days - years,
Into grey ashes go;
I strive to read,
But sombre is the glow.

Thumbed are the pages,
And the print is small;
Mocking the winds
That from the darkness call;
Feeble the fire that lends
Its light withal.

O ghost, draw nearer;
Let thy shadowy hair,
Blot out the pages
That we cannot share;
Be ours the one last leaf
By Fate left bare!

Let's Finis scrawl,
And then Life's book put by;
Turn each to each
In all simplicity:
Ere the last flame is gone
To warm us by.

Mothers of men--the words are good indeed in the saying,
Pride in the very sound of them, strength in the sense of them, then
Why is it their faces haunt me, wistful faces as praying
Ever some dear thing vanished and ever a hope delaying,
Mothers of Men?

Mothers of Men, most patient, tenderly slow to discover
The loss of the old allegiance that may not return again.
You give a man to the world, you give a woman a lover--
Where is your solace then when the time of giving is over,
Mothers of Men?

Mothers of Men, but surely, the title is worth the earning.
You who are brave in feigning must I ever behold you then
By the door of an empty heart with the lamp of faith still burning,
Watching the ways of life for the sight of a child returning,
Mothers of Men?

I begin through the grass once again to be bound to the Lord;
I can see, through a face that has faded, the face full of rest
Of the Earth, of the Mother, my heart with her heart in accord:
As I lie mid the cool green tresses that mantle her breast
I begin with the grass once again to be bound to the Lord.

By the hand of a child I am led to the throne of the King,
For a touch that now fevers me not is forgotten and far,
And His infinite sceptred hands that sway us can bring
Me in dreams from the laugh of a child to the song of a star.
On the laugh of a child I am borne to the joy of the King.

Well, when all is said and done
Best within my narrow way,
May some angel of the sun
Muse memorial o'er my clay:

'Here was beauty all betrayed
From the freed...

Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
As in that well-remember'd night
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whisper'd love.

Since then how often hast thou prest
The torrid zone of this wild breast,
Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell
With the first sin that peopled hell;
A breast whose blood's a troubled ocean,
Each throb the earthquake's wild commotion!
Oh if such clime thou canst endure
Yet keep thy hue unstain'd and pure,
What conquest o'er each erring thought
Of that fierce realm had Agnes wrought!
I had not wander'd far and wide
With such an angel for my guide;
Nor heaven nor earth could then reprove me
If she had lived, and lived to love me.

Not then this world's wild joys had been
To me one savage h...

She said: the pitying audience melt in tears,
But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's ears.
In vain Thalestris with reproach assails,
For who can move when fair Belinda fails?
Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain,
While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain.
Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan;
Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began.
"Say, why are beauties prais'd and honour'd most,
The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast?
Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford,
Why angels call'd, and angel-like ador'd?
Why round our coaches crowd the white-glov'd beaux,
Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows?
How vain are all these glories, all our pains,
Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains:
That men may say, when we the front-box grac...

In Memory of Theodore de Banville

Death, a light outshining life, bids heaven resume
Star by star the souls whose light made earth divine.
Death, a night outshining day, sees burn and bloom
Flower by flower, and sun by sun, the fames that shine
Deathless, higher than life beheld their sovereign sign.
Dead Simonides of Ceos, late restored,
Given again of God, again by man deplored,
Shone but yestereve, a glory frail as breath.
Frail? But fame's breath quickens, kindles, keeps in ward,
Life so sweet as this that dies and casts off death.
Mother's love, and rapture of the sea, whose womb
Breeds eternal life of joy that stings like brine,
Pride of song, and joy to dare the singer's doom,
Sorrow soft as sleep and laughter bright as wine,
Flushed and filled with fr...

        Like fruit that's large and ripe and mellow,
        Sweet and luscious is Longfellow,
        Melodious songs he oft did pour
        And high was his Excelsior.
        He shows in his Psalm of Life
        The folly of our selfish strife,
        With Hiawatha we bewail
        His suffering in great Indian tale.
        Indian nation was forlorn
        Till great spirit planted corn;
        His story of Evangeline
        It is a tale of love divine.

    Though better men may fear that trumpet's warning,
    I meet you, lady, on the Judgment morning,
    With golden hope my spirit still adorning.

    Our God who made you all so fair and sweet
    Is three times gentle, and before his feet
    Rejoicing I shall say: - "The girl you gave
    Was my first Heaven, an angel bent to save.
    Oh, God, her maker, if my ingrate breath
    Is worth this rescue from the Second Death,
    Perhaps her dear proud eyes grow gentler too
    That scorned my graceless years and trophies few.
    Gone are those years, and gone ill-deeds that turned
    Her sacred beauty from my songs that burned.
    We now as comrades through the stars may take
    The rich and arduous quests I did forsake.
    Grant me a seraph-guide to ...