Courage

The Day brims high its ewer
Of blue with starry light,
And crowns as King that hewer
Of clouds (which take their flight
Across the sky) old Night.

And Tempest there, who houses
Within them, like a cave,
Lies down and dreams and drowses
Upon the Earth's huge grave,
With wandering wind and wave.

The storm moves on; and winging
From out the east a bird,
The moon drifts, calmly bringing
A message and a word
Of peace, in Heaven it heard.

Of peace and times called golden,
Whose beauty makes it glow
With love, like that of olden,
Which mortals used to know
There in the long-ago.

The passion you forbade my lips to utter
    Will not be silenced.    You must hear it in
The sullen thunders when they roll and mutter:
    And when the tempest nears, with wail and din,
I know your calm forgetfulness is broken,
And to your heart you whisper, "He has spoken."

All nature understands and sympathises
    With human passion.    When the restless sea
Turns in its futile search for peace, and rises
    To plead and to pursue, it pleads for me.
And with each desperate billow's anguished fretting.
Your heart must tell you, "He is not forgetting."

When unseen hands in lightning strokes are writing
    Mysterious words upon a cloudy scroll,
Know that my pent-up passion is inditing
    A cypher message for your woman's soul;
And when the law...

        You know what it is to be born alone,
        Baby tortoise!
        The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
        Not yet awake,
        And remain lapsed on earth,
        Not quite alive.

        A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.

        To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,
        Like some iron door;
        To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
        And reach your skinny little neck
        And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
        Alone, small insect,
        Tiny bright-eye,
        Slow one.

        To take your first solitary bite
        And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
        Your bright, dark little eye,
        Yo...

Majestic King of storms! around
    Thy wan and hoary brow
A spotless diadem is bound
    Of everlasting snow:
Time, which dissolves all earthly things,
O'er thee hath vainly waved his wings!

The sun, with his refulgent beams,
    Thaws not thy icy zone;
Lord of ten thousand frozen streams,
    That sleep around thy throne,
Whose crystal barriers may defy
The genial warmth of summer's sky.

What human foot shall dare intrude
    Beyond the howling waste,
Or view the untrodden solitude,
    Where thy dark home is placed;
In those far realms of death where light
Shrieks from thy glance and all is night?

The earth has felt thine iron tread,
    The streams have ceased to flow,
The leaves beneath thy feet lie dead,
    And...

I mind it was but yesterday:
The sun was dim, the air was chill;
Below the town, below the hill,
The sails of my son’s ship did fill,
My Jacob, who was cast away.

He said, “God keep you, mother dear,”
But did not turn to kiss his wife;
They had some foolish, idle strife;
Her tongue was like a two-edged knife,
And he was proud as any peer.

Howbeit that night I took no note
Of sea nor sky, for all was drear;
I marked not that the hills looked near,
Nor that the moon, though curved and clear,
Through curd-like scud did drive and float.

For with my darling went the joy
Of autumn woods and meadows brown;
I came to hate the little town;
It seemed as if the sun went down
With him, my only darling boy.

It was the middle of t...

If the stars fell; night's nameless dreams
Of bliss and blasphemy came true,
If skies were green and snow were gold,
And you loved me as I love you;

O long light hands and curled brown hair,
And eyes where sits a naked soul;
Dare I even then draw near and burn
My fingers in the aureole?

Yes, in the one wise foolish hour
God gives this strange strength to a man.
He can demand, though not deserve,
Where ask he cannot, seize he can.

But once the blood's wild wedding o'er,
Were not dread his, half dark desire,
To see the Christ-child in the cot,
The Virgin Mary by the fire?

I stood before a chain of beautiful mountains forming a semicircle. A young, green forest covered them from summit to base.

Limpidly blue above them was the southern sky; on the heights the sunbeams rioted; below, half-hidden in the grass, swift brooks were babbling.

And the old fable came to my mind, how in the first century after Christ's birth, a Greek ship was sailing on the Aegean Sea.

The hour was mid-day.... It was still weather. And suddenly up aloft, above the pilot's head, some one called distinctly, 'When thou sailest by the island, shout in a loud voice, "Great Pan is dead!"'

The pilot was amazed ... afraid. But when the ship passed the island, he obeyed, he called, 'Great Pan is dead!'

And, at once, in response to his shout, all along the coast (though the island was unin...

Say not, the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been, things remain;

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.

When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved,
    Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then;
Or, if from their slumber the veil be removed,
    Weep o'er them in silence, and close it again.
And oh! if 'tis pain to remember how far
    From the pathways of light he was tempted to roam,
Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star
    That arose on his darkness and guided him home.

From thee and thy innocent beauty first came
    The revealings, that taught him true love to adore,
To feel the bright presence, and turn him with shame
    From the idols he blindly had knelt to before.
O'er the waves of a life, long benighted and wild,
    Thou camest, like a soft golden calm o'er the sea;
And if happiness purely and glowingly smiled
    On h...

Lo, a castle, tall, lake-mirrored,
Ringed around by mountain forms,
Roofless, ruined, still defying
Summer's rains and winter's storms.

Every shattered lifeless window,
Every stone in every wall,
Keep and gable, broken stairway,
Woman's faithful love recall.

Colin, called "the Swarthy," famous
In the annals of Lochow,
When a child, was gently fostered
Near where Orchy's waters flow.

The Black Knight, his sire, could value
Vassal's love and hardy fare;
To a gudewife gave him, saying,
"Train him with the sons you bear."

Strong he grew, and brave, till armies
Praised in him a man of men.
Came a peace--then love;--a lady
Ruled with him the Orchy's glen.

But afar from over Ocean
Rose a cry for Christian aid:

When Learning, after the long Gothic night,
Fair, o'er the western world, renew'd its light,
With arts arising, Sophonisba rose;
The tragic Muse, returning, wept her woes.
With her th' Italian scene first learn'd to glow,
And the first tears for her were taught to flow:
Her charms the Gallic Muses next inspired;
Corneille himself saw, wonder'd, and was fired.

What foreign theatres with pride have shown,
Britain, by juster title, makes her own.
When freedom is the cause, 'tis hers to fight,
And hers, when freedom is the theme, to write.
For this a British author bids again
The heroine rise, to grace the British scene:
Here, as in life, she breathes her genuine flame,
She asks, What bosom has not felt the same?
Asks of the British youth--is silence there?<...

    Walking to-day in your garden, O gracious lady,
    Little you thought as you turned in that alley remote and shady,
    And gave me a rose and asked if I knew its savour--
    The old-world scent of the mossrose, flower of a bygone favour--

    Little you thought as you waited the word of appraisement,
    Laughing at first and then amazed at my amazement,
    That the rose you gave was a gift already cherished,
    And the garden whence you plucked it a garden long perished.

    But I--I saw that garden, with its one treasure
    The tiny mossrose, tiny even by childhood's measure,
    And the long morning shadow of the dusty laurel,
    And a boy and a girl beneath it, flushed with a childish quarrel.

    She wept for her one little bud: but he, outreachi...

When dawns on earth the Easter sun
The dear saints feel an answering thrill.
With whitest flowers their hands they fill;
And, singing all in unison,

Unto the battlements they press--
The very marge of heaven--how near!
And bend, and look upon us here
With eyes that rain down tenderness.

Their roses, brimmed with fragrant dew,
Their lilies fair they raise on high;
"Rejoice! The Lord is risen!" they cry;
"Christ is arisen; we prove it true!

"Rejoice, and dry those faithless tears
With which your Easter flowers are stained;
Share in our bliss, who have attained
The rapture of the eternal years;

"Have proved the promise which endures,
The Love that deigned, the Love that died;
Have reached our haven by His side--
Are Christ's...

Around, the stillness deepened; then the grain
Went wild with wind; and every briery lane
Was swept with dust; and then, tempestuous black,
Hillward the tempest heaved a monster back,
That on the thunder leaned as on a cane;
And on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack,
That gullied gold from many a lightning-crack:
One big drop splashed and wrinkled down the pane,
And then field, hill, and wood were lost in rain.

At last, through clouds, - as from a cavern hewn.
Into night's heart, - the sun burst angry roon;
And every cedar, with its weight of wet,
Against the sunset's fiery splendor set,
Frightened to beauty, seemed with rubies strewn:
Then in drenched gardens, like sweet phantoms met,
Dim odors rose of pink and mignonette;
And in the east a confidence, t...

Close by the threshold of a door nail’d fast
Three kittens sat; each kitten look’d aghast.
I, passing swift and inattentive by,
At the three kittens cast a careless eye;
Not much concern’d to know what they did there;
Not deeming kittens worth a poet’s care.
But presently a loud and furious hiss
Caused me to stop and to exclaim, “What’s this?”
When lo! upon the threshold met my view
With head erect, and eyes of fiery hue,
A viper long as Count de Grasse’s queue.
Forth from his head his forked tongue he throws,
Darting it full against a kitten’s nose;
Who, having never seen, in field or house,
The like, sat still and silent as a mouse;
Only projecting with attention due,
Her whisker’d face, she asked him, “Who are you?”
On to the hall went I, with pace not...

The sun o’er the waters was throwing
In the freshness of morning its beams;
And the breast of the ocean seemed glowing
With glittering silvery streams:
A bark in the distance was bounding
Away for the land on her lee;
And the boatswain’s shrill whistle resounding
Came over and over the sea.
The breezes blew fair and were guiding
Her swiftly along on her track,
And the billows successively passing,
Were lost in the distance aback.
The sailors seemed busy preparing
For anchor to drop ere the night;
The red rusted cables in fathoms
Were haul’d from their prisons to light.
Each rope and each brace was attended
By stout-hearted sons of the main,
Whose voices, in unison blended,
Sang many a merry-toned strain.

Forgotten their care and their...

Oh moon our fathers worshipped, their love discreet,
from the blue country’s heights where the bright seraglio,
the stars in their sweet dress, go treading after you,
my ancient Cynthia, lamp of my retreat,


do you see the lovers, in their bed’s happiness
showing in sleep their mouths’ cool enamels,
the poet bruising his forehead on his troubles,
or the vipers coupling under the dry grasses?


Under your yellow cloak, with clandestine pacing,
do you pass as before, from twilight to morning,
to kiss Endymion’s faded grace?


‘I see your mother, Child of this impoverished century,
who, over her mirror, bends a time-worn face,
and powders the breast that fed you, skilfully.’

1.

Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story -
The days of our Youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.[604]


2.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary,
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

3.

Oh Fame! - if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover,
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

4.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;