Courage

In Spring,
        While softly cooed
                                The Dove,

Sam
        Told Selina of
                                His Love.


The Summer Moon smiled on them both,
Selina plighted him her Troth.

But Autumn brought a gayer Swain--
Selina broke it off again.


'Tis Winter now--
                    Selina's slack--
She'd give her thumbs to have him back.

Yet--
        When they met
                She tossed her head;

He
        Stared at her and
                            Cut her dead!


But Fate at last to them was kind:
    It sent
                a
                    Roaring,
                                Raging
                           ...

Hush, mourning mother, wan and pale!
    No sobs - no grieving now:
No burning tears must thou let fall
    Upon that cold still brow;
No look of anguish cast above,
    Nor smite thine aching breast,
But clasp thy hands and thank thy God -
    Thy darling is at rest.

Close down those dark-fringed, snowy lids
    Over the violet eyes,
Whose liquid light was once as clear
    As that of summer skies.
Is it not bliss to know what e'er
    Thy future griefs and fears,
They will be never dimmed like thine
    By sorrow's scalding tears?

Enfold the tiny fingers fair,
    From which life's warmth has fled,
For ever freed from wearing toil -
    The toil for daily bread:
Compose the softly moulded limbs,
    The little waxen feet,...

The sun is sinking where the western hills
    The vision bounds with rugged summits old,
And with his latest beam he brightly gilds
    And crowns with amethyst and gold.

The distant music of a tinkling bell
    Is floating o'er the meadow's gentle sweep--
No discords mar the magic of the spell,
    And stealthily the twilight shadows creep.

And gently falls upon the listening ear--
    Like tones from voices of the long-ago--
The cadence of the murmuring waters near--
    With rhythmic ripplings soft and low.

Now grow apace the shadows' slanting shapes
    And fade the rugged hills to misty gray,
As dying day its calm departure takes
    And yields to coming night her sable sway.

The vaulted dome above now glows afar
    With man...

The sun goes down, and with him takes
The coarseness of my poor attire;
The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame
Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher.

Pale Northern girls! you scorn our race;
You captives of your air-tight halls,
Wear out indoors your sickly days,
But leave us the horizon walls.

And if I take you, dames, to task,
And say it frankly without guile,
Then you are Gypsies in a mask,
And I the lady all the while.

If on the heath, below the moon,
I court and play with paler blood,
Me false to mine dare whisper none,--
One sallow horseman knows me good.

Go, keep your cheek's rose from the rain,
For teeth and hair with shopmen deal;
My swarthy tint is in the grain,
The rocks and forest know it real.

The wild ai...

(See Note 41)

As on I drive, in my heart joy dwells
Of Sabbath silence with sound of bells.
The sun lifts all that is living, growing,
God's love itself in its symbol showing.
To church pass people from near and far,
Soon psalms ascend from the door ajar.
- Good cheer! Your greeting hailed more than me,
But that in hastening you failed to see.

Here's goodly company with me riding,
Though oft they cunningly keep in hiding;
But when you saw me so Sunday-glad,
It was because of the mates I had.
And when you heard me so softly singing,
The tones attuned to their hearts were ringing.

One soul is here of such priceless worth,
For me she offered her all on earth;
Yes, she who smiled in my boat storm-driven,
And blanched not, braving...

1.
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
'Which make thee terrible and dear, -
Swift be thy flight!

2.
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand -
Come, long-sought!

3.
When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest, I sighed for thee.

4.
Thy brother Death came, and cried,

The Demon, in my chamber high,
This morning came to visit me,
And, thinking he would find some fault,
He whispered: "I would know of thee

Among the many lovely things
That make the magic of her face,
Among the beauties, black and rose,
That make her body's charm and grace,

Which is most fair?" Thou didst reply
To the Abhorred, O soul of mine:
"No single beauty is the best
When she is all one flower divine.

When all things charm me I ignore
Which one alone brings most delight;
She shines before me like the dawn,
And she consoles me like the night.

The harmony is far too great,
That governs all her body fair,
For impotence to analyse
And say which note is sweetest there.

O mystic metamorphosis!
My senses int...

Though nurtured like the sailing moon
In beauty’s murderous brood,
She walked awhile and blushed awhile
And on my pathway stood
Until I thought her body bore
A heart of flesh and blood.

But since I laid a hand thereon
And found a heart of stone
I have attempted many things
And not a thing is done,
For every hand is lunatic
That travels on the moon.

She smiled and that transfigured me
And left me but a lout,
Maundering here, and maundering there,
Emptier of thought
Than the heavenly circuit of its stars
When the moon sails out.

'Tis said, long since an angel came to earth,
Sent by his Lord, to help with loving hand
A suffering one, afflicted from his birth.
The limb was healed as by divine command,
But He felt weak, for strength from Him had gone,
A sacrifice which love could not withhold;
So he sought shelter till the morning dawn,
But none received--they prized not love, but gold.

Then 'neath a rose bush did the angel lie,
And rested well until the break of day,
When much refreshed he sought his home on high,
But ere he started on his upward way,
He said to sheltering rose, in loving voice,
"What man refused thou hast afforded me.
What is thy wish? Make known to me thy choice;
The God of love and power will grant it thee!"

"I ask no brighter hue," the rose replied,

Far on its rocky knoll descried
Saint Michael’s chapel cuts the sky.
I climb’d; beneath me, bright and wide,
Lay the lone coast of Brittany.

Bright in the sunset, weird and still,
It lay beside the Atlantic wave,
As if the wizard Merlin’s will
Yet charm’d it from his forest grave.

Behind me on their grassy sweep,
Bearded with lichen, scrawl’d and grey,
The giant stones of Carnac sleep,
In the mild evening of the May.

No priestly stern procession now
Streams through their rows of pillars old;
No victims bleed, no Druids bow;
Sheep make the furze-grown aisles their fold.

From bush to bush the cuckoo flies,
The orchis red gleams everywhere;
Gold broom with furze in blossom vies,
The blue-bells perfume all the air.

There's a warrior hunting o'er prairie and hill,
Who in sunshine or starlight is eager to kill,
Who ne'er sleeps by his fire on the wild river's shore,
Where the green cedars shake to the white rapids' roar.

Ever tireless and noiseless, he knows not repose,
Be the land filled with summer, or lifeless with snows;
But his strength gives him few he can count as his friends,
Man and beast fly before him wherever he wends,

For he chases alike every form that has breath,
And his darts must strike all,--for that hunter is Death!!
Lo! a skeleton armed, and his scalp-lock yet streams;
From this vision of fear of the Iroquois' dreams!

Gloomy and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas;
Gloomy and dark as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken!
Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's
Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers
Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their footprints.
What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints?

How canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies!
How canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains!
Ah! 't is in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge
Looks of disdain in return, and question these walls and these pavements,
Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions
Starve in the gar...

Deare Friend.

I heare this Towne does soe abound,
With sawcy Censurers, that faults are found,
With what of late wee (in Poetique Rage)
Bestowing, threw away on the dull Age;
But (howsoe're Envy, their Spleen may raise,
To Robb my Brow, of the deserved Bays)
Their thanks at least I merit since through me,
They are Partakers of your Poetry;
And this is all, I'll say in my defence,
T'obtaine one Line, of your well worded Sense

I'd be content t'have writ the Brittish Prince.
I'm none of those who thinke themselves inspir'd,
Nor write with the vaine hopes to be admir'd;
But from a Rule (I have upon long tryall)
T'avoyd with care, all sort of self denyall.
Which way soe're desire and fancy leade
(Contemning Fame) that Path I boldly tread;
And ...

Awake! arise! the hour is late!
    Angels are knocking at thy door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
    And once departed come no more.

Awake! arise! the athlete's arm
    Loses its strength by too much rest;
The fallow land, the untilled farm
    Produces only weeds at best.

The air is perfumed with the morning's fresh breeze,
From the bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright,
While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees,
And the cloud-crested mountains are golden with light.

With joyful, melodious, ravishing, strain,
The lark, as he wakens, salutes the glad sun,
Who glows in the arms of Aurora again,
And blissfully smiling, his race 'gins to run.

    All hail, light of day!
    Thy sweet gushing ray
Pours down its soft warmth over pasture and field;
    With hues silver-tinged
    The meadows are fringed,
And numberless suns in the dewdrop revealed.

    Young Nature invades
    The whispering shades,
    Displaying each ravishing charm;
    The soft zephyr blows,
    And kisses the ...

I have been reading Pomfret’s “Choice” this spring,
A pretty kind of—sort of—kind of thing,
Not much a verse, and poem none at all,
Yet, as they say, extremely natural.
And yet I know not. There’s an art in pies,
In raising crusts as well as galleries;
And he’s the poet, more or less, who knows
The charm that hallows the least truth from prose,
And dresses it in its mild singing clothes.
Not oaks alone are trees, nor roses flowers;
Much humble wealth makes rich this world of ours.
Nature from some sweet energy throws up
Alike the pine-mount and the buttercup;
And truth she makes so precious, that to paint
Either, shall shrine an artist like a saint,
And bring him in his turn the crowds that press
Round Guido’s saints or Titian’s goddesses.

Our trivi...

My sense reviving, that erewhile had droop'd
With pity for the kindred shades, whence grief
O'ercame me wholly, straight around I see
New torments, new tormented souls, which way
Soe'er I move, or turn, or bend my sight.
In the third circle I arrive, of show'rs
Ceaseless, accursed, heavy, and cold, unchang'd
For ever, both in kind and in degree.
Large hail, discolour'd water, sleety flaw
Through the dun midnight air stream'd down amain:
Stank all the land whereon that tempest fell.

Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange,
Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog
Over the multitude immers'd beneath.
His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard,
His belly large, and claw'd the hands, with which
He tears the spirits, flays them, and their li...

When a girl's sixteen, and as poor as she's pretty,
And she hasn't a friend and she hasn't a home,
Heigh-ho! She's as safe in Paris city
As a lamb night-strayed where the wild wolves roam;
And that was I; oh, it's seven years now
(Some water's run down the Seine since then),
And I've almost forgotten the pangs and the tears now,
And I've almost taken the measure of men.

Oh, I found me a lover who loved me only,
Artist and poet, and almost a boy.
And my heart was bruised, and my life was lonely,
And him I adored with a wonderful joy.
If he'd come to me with his pockets empty,
How we'd have laughed in a garret gay!
But he was rich, and in radiant plenty
We lived in a villa at Viroflay.

Then came the War, and of bliss bereft me;
Then came the cal...