Courage

I

Now, in the moonrise, from a wintry sky,
The frost has come to charm with elfin might
This quiet room; to draw with symbols bright
Faces and forms in fairest charactery
Upon the casement; all the thoughts that lie
Deep hidden in my heart's core he would tell,
How the red shoots of fancy strike and swell,
How they are watered, what soil nourished by.

With eerie power he piles his atomies,
Incrusted gems, star-glances overborne
With lids of sleep pulled from the moth's bright eyes,
And forests of frail ferns, blanched and forlorn,
Where Oberon of unimagined size
Might in the silver silence wind his horn.


II

With these alone he draws in magic lines,
Faces that people dreams, and chiefly one
Happy and brilliant as the nort...

Here is the freedom men die for,--die for but never know;
Here is the peace they pray for shrined in eternal snow;
Down on the plain the city moans with a human cry,
But here there is naught but silence,--peace, and the wide, wide sky.

Here are the dawn's first footfalls, and the twilight's last farewell,
The benediction of starlight, and the moon's sweet canticle;
Here is one spot as God made it, far from the plainsman's range,
Or the march of the cycling seasons with their everlasting change.

Down on the plain the city moans with a human cry,
And the man-gnomes delve and burrow for gold till they drop and die;
But here there is naught for conquest and the spoiler stands at bay,
For God still keeps one playground where He and His whirlwinds play.

[1]

'Go, paltry insect, nature's meanest brat!'
Thus said the royal lion to the gnat.
The gnat declared immediate war.
'Think you,' said he, 'your royal name
To me worth caring for?
Think you I tremble at your power or fame?
The ox is bigger far than you;
Yet him I drive, and all his crew.'
This said, as one that did no fear owe,
Himself he blew the battle charge,
Himself both trumpeter and hero.
At first he play'd about at large,
Then on the lion's neck, at leisure, settled,
And there the royal beast full sorely nettled.
With foaming mouth, and flashing eye,
He roars. All creatures hide or fly, -
Such mortal terror at
The work of one poor gnat!
With constant change of his attack,
The snout now stinging, now the back,
...

On Juda's Cliff I love to lean and look
        On waves that battling beat and break with might,
While farther seaward in a bland delight,
        I see them shining where a rainbow shook.
On Juda's Cliff I love to lean and look
        On waves that like sea-armies swing to sight,
To send upon the shore their billows white,
        And, ebbing, to leave pearls in every nook.

Thus, Poet, in your youth when storms are wild
        And passions break upon the heart and brain,
To leave their ruin there--shipwreck and waste--
        Pick up your lute! Upon it undefiled
You'll find song-pearls that your heart-deeps retain,
        The crown the years have brought you, white and chaste.

Now the sweet Dawn on brighter fields afar
Has walked among the daisies, and has breathed
The glory of the mountain winds, and sheathed
The stubborn sword of Night's last-shining star.
In Bathrolaire when Day's old doors unbar
The motley mask, fantastically wreathed,
Pass through a strong portcullis brazen teethed,
And enter glowing mines of cinnabar.
Stupendous prisons shut them out from day,
Gratings and caves and rayless catacombs,
And the unrelenting rack and tourniquet
Grind death in cells where jetting gaslight gloams,
And iron ladders stretching far away
Dive to the depths of those eternal domes.

All things within this fading world hath end,
Adversity doth still our joys attend;
No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,
But with death's parting blow is sure to meet.
The sentence past is most irrevocable,
A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.
How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend.
How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant, yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when that knot's untied that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my days that's due,
What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know
I have Let be interred in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue were in me,
Let that live freshly in thy memory
An...

I have experienc'd
The worst, the World can wreak on me, the worst
That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb
With whisper'd Discontents the dying prayer,
I have beheld the whole of all, wherein
My Heart had any interest in this Life,
To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes
That nothing now is left. Why then live on?
That Hostage, which the world had in it's keeping
Given by me as a Pledge that I would live,
That Hope of Her, say rather, that pure Faith
In her fix'd Love, which held me to keep truce
With the Tyranny of Life, is gone ah! whither?
What boots it to reply? 'tis gone! and now
Well may I break this Pact, this League of Blood
That ties me to myself, and break I shall!

By ev'ry sweet tradition of true hearts,
Graven by Time, in love with his own lore;
By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts,
Wherein Love died to be alive the more;
Yea, by the sad impression on the shore,
Left by the drown'd Leander, to endear
That coast for ever, where the billow's roar
Moaneth for pity in the Poet's ear;
By Hero's faith, and the foreboding tear
That quench'd her brand's last twinkle in its fall;
By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear
That sigh'd around her flight; I swear by all,
The world shall find such pattern in my act,
As if Love's great examples still were lack'd.

Day, you have bruised and beaten me,
As rain beats down the bright, proud sea,
Beaten my body, bruised my soul,
Left me nothing lovely or whole,

Yet I have wrested a gift from you,
Day that dies in dusky blue:
For suddenly over the factories
I saw a moon in the cloudy seas,

A wisp of beauty all alone
In a world as hard and gray as stone,
Oh who could be bitter and want to die
When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?

Slow boiling up, on the horizon's brim,
Huge clouds arise, mountainous, dark and grim,
Sluggish and slow upon the air they ride,
As pitch-black ships o'er the blue ocean glide;
Curling and hovering o'er the gloomy south,
As curls the sulphur from the cannon's mouth.
More grizly in the sun the tempest comes,
And through the wood with threatened vengeance hums,
Hissing more loud and loud among the trees:--
The frighted wild-wind trembles to a breeze,
Just turns the leaf in terrifying sighs,
Bows to the spirit of the storm, and dies.
In wild pulsations beats the heart of fear,
At the low rumbling thunder creeping near.
The poplar leaf now resteth on its tree;
And the mill-sail, once twirling rapidly,
Lagging and lagging till each breeze had dropt,
Abruptly n...

Secretary of the Boston young men's anti-slavery society.


Gone before us, O our brother,
To the spirit-land!
Vainly look we for another
In thy place to stand.
Who shall offer youth and beauty
On the wasting shrine
Of a stern and lofty duty,
With a faith like thine?

Oh, thy gentle smile of greeting
Who again shall see?
Who amidst the solemn meeting
Gaze again on thee?
Who when peril gathers o'er us,
Wear so calm a brow?
Who, with evil men before us,
So serene as thou?

Early hath the spoiler found thee,
Brother of our love!
Autumn's faded earth around thee,
And its storms above!
Evermore that turf lie lightly,
And, with future showers,
O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly
Blow the summer flow...

Thou go'st! I murmur
Go! let me murmur.
Oh, worthy man,
Fly from this land!

Deadly marshes,
Steaming mists of October
Here interweave their currents,
Blending for ever.

Noisome insects
Here are engender'd;
Fatal darkness
Veils their malice.

The fiery-tongued serpent,
Hard by the sedgy bank,
Stretches his pamper'd body,
Caress'd by the sun's bright beams.

Tempt no gentle night-rambles
Under the moon's cold twilight!
Loathsome toads hold their meetings
Yonder at every crossway.

Injuring not,
Fear will they cause thee.
Oh, worthy man,
Fly from this land!

To the heart of trusting childhood life is all a gilded way,
Wherein a beam of sunny bliss forever seems to play;
It roams about delightedly through pleasure's roseate bower,
And gaily makes a playmate, too, of every bird and flower;
Holds with the rushing of the winds companionship awhile,
And, on the tempest's darkest brow, discerns a brightening smile,
Converses with the babbling waves, as on their way they wend,
And sees, in everything it meets, the features of a friend.
"To-day" is full of rosy joy, "to-morrow" is not here:
When, for an uncreated hour, was childhood known to fear?
Not until hopes, warm hopes, its heart a treasure-house have made,
Like summer flowers to bloom awhile, like them, alas, to fade;
Cherished too fondly and too long, for ah! the rich parterre,
...

"Hark! Lakshman! Hark, again that cry!
It is,--it is my husband's voice!
Oh hasten, to his succour fly,
No more hast thou, dear friend, a choice.
He calls on thee, perhaps his foes
Environ him on all sides round,
That wail,--it means death's final throes!
Why standest thou, as magic-bound?

"Is this a time for thought,--oh gird
Thy bright sword on, and take thy bow!
He heeds not, hears not any word,
Evil hangs over us, I know!
Swift in decision, prompt in deed,
Brave unto rashness, can this be,
The man to whom all looked at need?
Is it my brother, that I see!

"Ah no, and I must run alone,
For further here I cannot stay;
Art thou transformed to blind dumb stone!
Wherefore this impious, strange delay!
That cry,--that cry,--it seems...

    I sat by the fire and watched it blaze,
        And dreamed that she wrote me a letter,
    And for that dream to the end of my days
        To Fancy I owe myself debtor.

    Next day there came the postman's knock,
        The morning was bright and sunny,
    And showed me a sheaf of circulars, stock
        Attempts to get hold of my money.

    'Mid correspondence of this dull kind
        A dainty notelet lay hidden,
    It seemed as though it had half a mind
        To consider itself forbidden.

    The writing was like herself, complete,
        With a touch of her queenly bearing,
    So Venus wrote when she ordered in Crete
        Her doves to take her an airing.

    Inside it was just as promising,
        'Twas a pre...

My youth was my old age,
    Weary and long;
It had too many cares
    To think of song;
My moulting days all came
    When I was young.

Now, in life's prime, my soul
    Comes out in flower;
Late, as with Robin, comes
    My singing power;
I was not born to joy
    Till this late hour.

June

No hope, no change! The clouds have shut us in,
And through the cloud the sullen Sun strikes down
Full on the bosom of the tortured Town,
Till Night falls heavy as remembered sin
That will not suffer sleep or thought of ease,
And, hour on hour, the dry-eyed Moon in spite
Glares through the haze and mocks with watery light
The torment of the uncomplaining trees.
Far off, the Thunder bellows her despair
To echoing Earth, thrice parched. The lightnings fly
In vain. No help the heaped-up clouds afford,
But wearier weight of burdened, burning air.
What truce with Dawn? Look, from the aching sky,
Day stalks, a tyrant with a flaming sword!

September

At dawn there was a murmur in the trees,
A ripple on the tank, and in the air
Presage ...

My restless blood now lies a-quiver,
Knowing that always, exquisitely,
This April twilight on the river
Stirs anguish in the heart of me.

For the fast world in that rare glimmer
Puts on the witchery of a dream,
The straight grey buildings, richly dimmer,
The fiery windows, and the stream

With willows leaning quietly over,
The still ecstatic fading skies . . .
And all these, like a waiting lover,
Murmur and gleam, lift lustrous eyes,

Drift close to me, and sideways bending
Whisper delicious words.
But I
Stretch terrible hands, uncomprehending,
Shaken with love; and laugh; and cry.

My agony made the willows quiver;
I heard the knocking of my heart
Die loudly down the windless river,
I heard the pale skies fall apart,