Courage

In samite sark yclad was she;
And that fair glimmerish band of gold
Which crowned long, savage locks of hair
    In the moon brent cold.

She with big eyeballs gloomed and glowered,
And lightly hummed some Elfin's song,
And one could naught save on her stare
    And fare along.

Yea; sad and lute-like was that song
And softly said its mystery;
Which quaintly sang in elden verse
    "Thy love I'll be."

And oft it said: "I love thee true,
Sir Ewain, champion of the fair."
And never wist he what a witch
    Was that one there.

And never wist he that a witch
Had bound him with her wily hair,
Eke with dark art had ta'en his heart
    To slay him there.

And all his soul did wax amort
To stars, to hills, to slades,...

    Life's a jail where men have common lot.
    Gaunt the one who has, and who has not.
    All our treasures neither less nor more,
    Bread alone comes thro' the guarded door.
    Cards are foolish in this jail, I think,
    Yet they play for shoes, for drabs and drink.
    She, my lawless, sharp-tongued gypsy maid
    Will not scorn with me this jail-bird trade,
    Pets some fox-eyed boy who turns the trick,
    Tho' he win a button or a stick,
    Pencil, garter, ribbon, corset-lace -
    HIS the glory, MINE is the disgrace.

    Sweet, I'd rather lose than win despite
    Love of hearty words and maids polite.
    "Love's a gamble," say you.    I deny.
    Love's a gift.    I love you till I die.
    Gamblers fight like rats.    I will not play.

The sunshine of thy Father's fame
Sleeps in the shadows of thy eyes,
And flashes sometimes when his name
Like a lost star seeks its skies.

In the horizons of thy heart
His memory shines for aye,
A light that never shall depart
Nor lose a single ray.

Thou passest thro' the crowds unknown,
So gentle, so sweet, and so shy;
Thy heart throbs fast and sometimes may grow low;
                    Then alone
Art the star in thy Father's sky.

'Tis fame enough for thee to bear his name --
Thou couldst not ask for more;
Thou art the jewel of thy Father's fame,
He waiteth on the bright and golden shore;
He prayeth in the great Eternity
Beside God's throne for thee.

They dreamt not of a perishable home
Who thus could build. Be mine, in hours of fear
Or groveling thought, to seek a refuge here;
Or through the aisles of Westminster to roam:
Where bubbles burst, and folly's dancing foam
Melts, if it cross the threshold; where the wreath
Of awe-struck wisdom droops: or let my path
Lead to that younger Pile, whose sky-like dome
Hath typified by reach of daring art
Infinity's embrace; whose guardian crest,
The silent Cross, among the stars shall spread
As now, when She hath also seen her breast
Filled with mementos, satiate with its part
Of grateful England's overflowing Dead.

Come earth's little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill;
Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil.
In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along
Over fields and over hedgerows little quivering drops of song.
All adown the pale blue mantle of the mountains far away
Stream the tresses of the twilight flying in the wake of day.
Night comes; soon alone shall fancy follow sadly in her flight
Where the fiery dust of evening, shaken from the feet of light,
Thrusts its monstrous barriers between the pure, the good, the true,
That our weeping eyes may strain for, but shall never after view.
Only yester eve I watched with heart at rest the nebulæ
Looming far within the shadowy shining of the Milky Way;
Finding in the stillness joy and hope for a...

Like a bold, adventurous swain,
Just a year ago to-day,
I launched my bark on a radiant main,
And Hymen led the way:
"Breakers ahead!" he cried,
As he sought to overwhelm
My daring craft in the shrieking tide,
But Love, like a pilot bold and tried,
Sat, watchful, at the helm.

And we passed the treacherous shoals,
Where many a hope lay dead,
And splendid wrecks were piled, like the ghouls
Of joys forever fled.
Once safely over these,
We sped by a fairy realm,
Across the bluest and calmest seas
That were ever kissed by a truant breeze,
With Love still at the helm.

We sailed by sweet, odorous isles,
Where the flowers and trees were one;
Through lakes that vied with the golden smiles
Of heaven's unclouded sun:
Still speeds...

O youths and virgins: o declining eld:
O pale misfortune's slaves: o ye who dwell
Unknown with humble quiet; ye who wait
In courts, or fill the golden seat of kings:
O sons of sport and pleasure: o thou wretch
That weep'st for jealous love, or the sore wounds
Of conscious guilt, or death's rapacious hand
Which left thee void of hope: o ye who roam
In exile; ye who through the embattled field
Seek bright renown; or who for nobler palms
Contend, the leaders of a public cause;
Approach: behold this marble. Know ye not
The features? Hath not oft his faithful tongue
Told you the fashion of your own estate,
The secrets of your bosom? Here then, round
His monument with reverence while ye stand,
Say to each other: "This was Shakespeare's form;
"Who walk'd in ever...

Mentre m' attrista.


Mid weariness and woe I find some cheer
        In thinking of the past, when I recall
        My weakness and my sins, and reckon all
        The vain expense of days that disappear:
This cheers by making, ere I die, more clear
        The frailty of what men delight miscall;
        But saddens me to think how rarely fall
        God's grace and mercies in life's latest year.
For though Thy promises our faith compel,
        Yet, Lord, what man shall venture to maintain
        That pity will condone our long neglect?
Still from Thy blood poured forth we know full well
        How without measure was Thy martyr's pain,
        How measureless the gifts we dare expect.

Heap on more wood! the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer;
E'en, heathen yet, the savage Dane
At Iol more deep the mead did drain;
High on the beach his galleys drew,
And feasted all his pirate crew;
Then in his low and pine-built hall,
Where shields and axes decked the wall,
They gorged upon the half-dressed steer;
Caroused in seas of sable beer;
While round, in brutal jest, were thrown
The half-gnawed rib and marrow-bone;
Or listened all, in grim delight,
While scalds yelled out the joys of fight.
Then forth, in frenzy, would they hie,
While wildly-loose their red locks fly,
And dancing round the blazing pile,
They make...

Why each is striving, from of old,
To love more deeply than he can?
Still would be true, yet still grows cold?
Ask of the Powers that sport with man!

They yok’d in him, for endless strife,
A heart of ice, a soul of fire;
And hurl’d him on the Field of Life,
An aimless unallay’d Desire.

"Cross my hands upon my breast,"
Read her last behest.
"Turn my cheek upon the pillow,
As resting from life's stormy billow
With sleep's fine zest!"

"Cross my hands upon my breast,"
Read her last behest,
"That the patient bones may lie
In form of thanks eternally,
Grimly expressed!"

We clasped her hands upon her breast:
Oh mockery at misery's hest!
We hid in flowers her body's grief, -
Counting by many a rose and leaf
Her days unblessed!

MORN.

Down silver precipices drawn
The red-wine cataracts of dawn
Pour soundless torrents wide and far,
Deluging each warm, floating star.
A sound of winds and brooks and wings,
Sweet woodland-fluted carolings,
Star radiance dashed on moss and fern,
Wet leaves that quiver, breathe, and burn;
Wet hills, hung heavily with woods,
Dew-drenched and drunken solitudes
Faint-murmuring elfin canticles;
Sound, light, and spicy boisterous smells,
And flowers and buds; tumultuous bees,
Wind-wafts and genii of the trees.
Thro' briers that trammel, one by one,
With swinging pails comes laughing on
A troop of youthful berriers,
Their wet feet glitt'ring where they pass
Thro' dew-drop studded tufts of grass:
And oh! their cheers, their merry cheers,<...

O, richly soiled and richly sunned,
Exuberant, fervid, and fecund!
Is this the fixed condition
On which may Northern pilgrim come,
To imbibe thine ether-air, and sum
Thy store of old tradition?
Must we be chill, if clean, and stand
Foot-deep in dirt on classic land?

So is it: in all ages so,
And in all places man can know,
From homely roots unseen below
The stem in forest, field, and bower,
Derives the emanative power
That crowns it with the ethereal flower,
From mixtures foetid, foul, and sour
Draws juices that those petals fill.

Ah Nature, if indeed thy will
Thou own’st it, it shall not be ill!
And truly here, in this quick clime,
Where, scarcely bound by space or time,
The elements in half a day
Toss off with exquisitest...

When anxious Spain, along her rocky shore,
From cliff to cliff returned the sea-fight's roar;
When flash succeeding flash, tremendous broke
The haze incumbent, and the clouds of smoke,
As oft the volume rolled away, thy mien,
Thine eye, serenely terrible, was seen,
My gallant friend. Hark! the shrill bugle[1] calls,
Is the day won! alas, he falls he falls!
His soul from pain, from agony release!
Hear his last murmur, Let me die in peace![2]
Yet still, brave Cooke, thy country's grateful tear,
Shall wet the bleeding laurel on thy bier.
But who shall wake to joy, through a long life
Of sadness, thy beloved and widowed wife,
Who now, perhaps, thinks how the green seas foam,
That bear thy victor ship impatient home!
Alas! the well-known views...

Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou
Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged
Of one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy
Are swallowed up - yet spare me, Spirit, pity me,
Until the sounds I hear become my soul,
And it has left these faint and weary limbs,
To track along the lapses of the air
This wandering melody until it rests
Among lone mountains in some...

One gloomy eve I roamed about
Neath Oxey's hazel bowers,
While timid hares were darting out,
To crop the dewy flowers;
And soothing was the scene to me,
Right pleased was my soul,
My breast was calm as summer's sea
When waves forget to roll.

But short was even's placid smile,
My startled soul to charm,
When Nelly lightly skipt the stile,
With milk-pail on her arm:
One careless look on me she flung,
As bright as parting day;
And like a hawk from covert sprung,
It pounced my peace away.

Who knows the heart of the Christian? How does he reason?
What are his measures and balances? Which is his season
For laughter, forbearance or bloodshed, and what devils move him
When he arises to smite us? I do not love him.
He invites the derision of strangers, he enters all places.
Booted, bareheaded he enters. With shouts and embraces
He asks of us news of the household whom we reckon nameless.
Certainly Allah created him forty-fold shameless!

So it is not in the Desert. One came to me weeping,
The Avenger of Blood on his track, I took him in keeping.
Demanding not whom he had slain, I refreshed him, I fed him
As he were even a brother. But Eblis had bred him.

He was the son of an ape, ill at ease in his clothing.
He talked with his head, hands and feet. I en...

For thee alone I brave the boundless deep,
Those eyes my light through every distant sea;
My waking thoughts, the dream that gilds my sleep,
    The noon-tide revery, all are given to thee,
            To thee alone, to thee alone.

Tho' future scenes present to Fancy's eye
    Fair forms of light that crowd the distant air,
When nearer viewed, the fairy phantoms fly,
    The crowds dissolve, and thou alone art there,
            Thou, thou alone.

To win thy smile, I speed from shore to shore,
    While Hope's sweet voice is heard in every blast,
Still whispering on that when some years are o'er,
    One bright reward shall crown my toil at last,
            Thy smile alone, thy smile alone,

Oh place beside the transport of that hour
    All e...