Courage

Not long ago, the writer of these lines,
In the mad pride of intellectuality,
Maintained "the power of words"--denied that ever
A thought arose within the human brain
Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:
And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
Two words--two foreign soft dissyllables--
Italian tones, made only to be murmured
By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew
That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,"--
Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,
Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,
Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions
Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,
(Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures,")
Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.
The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.
With thy...

While fond, sad memories all around us throng,
Silence were sweeter than the sweetest song;
Yet when the leaves are green and heaven is blue,
The choral tribute of the grove is due,
And when the lengthening nights have chilled the skies,
We fain would hear the song-bird ere be flies,
And greet with kindly welcome, even as now,
The lonely minstrel on his leafless bough.

This is our golden year, - its golden day;
Its bridal memories soon must pass away;
Soon shall its dying music cease to ring,
And every year must loose some silver string,
Till the last trembling chords no longer thrill, -
Hands all at rest and hearts forever still.

A few gray heads have joined the forming line;
We hear our summons, - "Class of 'Twenty-Nine!"
Close on the foremost, a...

A meadow brown; across the yonder edge
A zigzag fence is ambling; here a wedge
Of underbush has cleft its course in twain,
Till where beyond it staggers up again;
The long, grey rails stretch in a broken line
Their ragged length of rough, split forest pine,
And in their zigzag tottering have reeled
In drunken efforts to enclose the field,
Which carries on its breast, September born,
A patch of rustling, yellow, Indian corn.
Beyond its shrivelled tassels, perched upon
The topmost rail, sits Joe, the settler's son,
A little semi-savage boy of nine.
Now dozing in the warmth of Nature's wine,
His face the sun has tampered with, and wrought,
By heated kisses, mischief, and has brought
Some vagrant freckles, while from here and there
A few wild locks of vagabon...

    He lay on the beach, just out of the reach
        Of waves that had cast him by:
    With fingers grim they reached for him
        As often as they came nigh.
    The shore-face brown had a surly frown,
        And glanced at the dancing sea,
    As if to say, "Take back the clay
        You tossed this morning at me."
    Great fragments rude, by the shipwreck strewed,
        Had found by this wreck a place;
    He had grasped them tight, and hope-strewn fright
        Sat still on the bloated face.
    Battered and bruised, forever abused,
        He lay by the heartless sea,
    As if Heaven's aid had never been made
        For a villain such as he.
    The fetter's mark lay heavy and dark
        Around the pulseless wrists;
    The harde...

She sitteth still who used to dance,
She weepeth sore and more and more -
Let us sit with thee weeping sore,
O fair France!

She trembleth as the days advance
Who used to be so light of heart: -
We in thy trembling bear a part,
Sister France!

Her eyes shine tearful as they glance:
"Who shall give back my slaughtered sons?
"Bind up," she saith, "my wounded ones." -
Alas, France!

She struggles in a deathly trance,
As in a dream her pulses stir,
She hears the nations calling her,
"France, France, France!"

Thou people of the lifted lance,
Forbear her tears, forbear her blood:
Roll back, roll back, thy whelming flood,
Back from France.

Eye not her loveliness askance,
Forge not for her a galling chain;
Leave...

    God bless the man who gave us rest
        And him who taught us play,
    For kindness reigned within his breast
        To all our sorrow slay;
    The weary heart, the fainting limb,
        The soul that droops in woe,
    Should most unceasing praise on him
        In gratitude bestow.

    He is the hero of the race,
        The toiling nation's friend,
    For pity smiles upon his face
        With joys that never end;
    He tears away the iron gyves
        That chain our best repose,
    And makes the deserts of our lives
        To blossom as the rose.

    He pours his balms into the wound
        Of bosom weak and sad,
    Till holy pleasures flit around
        And all the heart is glad;
    Till all is sweet tha...

To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so
Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves,
Back of old-storied spires and architraves
To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut,

And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day
Flooded with gold some domed metropolis,
Between new towers to waken and new bliss
Spread on his pillow in a wondrous way:

These were his joys. Oft under bulging crates,
Coming to market with his morning load,
The peasant found him early on his road
To greet the sunrise at the city-gates, -

There where the meadows waken in its rays,
Golden with mist, and the great roads commence,
And backward, where the chimney-tops are dense,
Cathedral-arches glimmer through the haze.

White dunes that breaking show a strip of s...

A poet had a cat.
There is nothing odd in that--
(I might make a little pun about the Mews!)
But what is really more
Remarkable, she wore
A pair of pointed patent-leather shoes.
And I doubt me greatly whether
E'er you heard the like of that:
Pointed shoes of patent-leather
On a cat!

His time he used to pass
Writing sonnets, on the grass--
(I might say something good on pen and sward!)
While the cat sat near at hand,
Trying hard to understand
The poems he occasionally roared.
(I myself possess a feline,
But when poetry I roar
He is sure to make a bee-line
For the door.)

The poet, cent by cent,
All his patrimony spent--
(I might tell how he went from werse to werse!...

Died at Hartford, August 4th, 1861; and his wife, Mrs. ELIZA STORRS TRUMBULL, the night after his funeral.


Death's shafts fly thick, and love a noble mark.
--And one hath fallen who bore upon his shield
The name and lineage of an honor'd race
Who gave us rulers in those ancient days
Where truth stood first and gain was left behind.

--His was the type of character that makes
Republics strong,--unstain'd fidelity,--
A dignity of mind that mark'd unmov'd
The unsought honors clustering round his path,
And chang'd them into duties. With firm step
On the high places of the earth he walk'd,
Serving his Country, not to share her spoils,
Nor pamper with exciting eloquence
A parasite ambition.
                    With clear eye
And cautious speech, and...

Maiden, stay! oh, whither wouldst thou go?
Do I still or pride or grandeur show?
Maiden, was it right?
Thou the giant mad'st a dwarf once more,
Scattered'st far the mountains that of yore
Climbed to glory's sunny height.

Thou hast doomed my flowerets to decay,
All the phantoms bright hast blown away,
Whose sweet follies formed the hero's trust;
All my plans that proudly raised their head
Thou dost, with gentle zephyr-tread,
Prostrate, laughing, in the dust.

To the godhead, eagle-like, I flew,
Smiling, fortune's juggling wheel to view,
Careless wheresoe'er her ball might fly;
Hovering far beyond Cocytus' wave,
Death and life receiving like a slave
Life and death from out one beaming eye!

Like the victors, who, with thunder-lance,

"Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." 2 TIMOTHY ii. 15.

My youthful brother, oft I long
To write to you in prose or song;
With no pretence to judgment strong,
But warm affection,
May truest friendship rivet long
Our close connection!

With deference, what I impart
Receive with humble grateful heart,
Nor proudly from my counsel start,
I only lend it,
A friend ne'er aims a poisoned dart,
He wounds, to mend it.

A graduate you've just been made,
And lately passed the Mitred Head;
I trust, by the Blest Spirit, led,
And Shepherd's care:
And not a wolf, in sheepskin clad,
As numbers are.

The greatest office you sustain
For love of souls, and n...

They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?

They shall not return to us; the strong men coldly slain
In sight of help denied from day to day:
But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,
Are they too strong and wise to put away?

Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide,
Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?

Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour:
When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to p...

for Constantin Guys

Of this strange, awe-inspiring scene
Such as on earth one never sees,
Today the image once again,
Obscure and distant, captures me.

Sleep is so full of miracles!
By whimsy odd and singular
I've banished from these spectacles
Nature and the irregular.

And, happy with my artistry,
I painted into my tableau
The ravishing monotony
Of marble, metal, water-flow.

Babel of endless stairs, arcades,
It was a palace multifold
Replete with pools and bright cascades
Falling in dull or burnished gold;

And the more weighty waterfalls
Like crystal screens resplendent there
Along the metal rampart walls
Seemed to suspend themselves in air;

The sleeping pools - there were no trees
Gathered aro...

"To Be Filed For Reference", Plain Tales From the Hills



By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed
From the cliff where she lay in the Sun
Fell the Stone
To the Tarn where the daylight is lost,
So she fell from the light of the Sun
And alone!

Now the fall was ordained from the first
With the Goat and the Cliff and the Tarn,
But the Stone
Knows only her life is accursed
As she sinks from the light of the Sun
And alone!

Oh Thou Who hast builded the World,
Oh Thou Who hast lighted the Sun,
Oh Thou Who hast darkened the Tarn,
Judge Thou
The sin of the Stone that was hurled
By the goat from the light of the Sun,
As she sinks in the mire of the Tarn,
Even now, even now, even now!

Above the skirts of yellow clouds,
The god-like Sun, arrayed
In blinding splendour, swiftly rose,
And looked athwart the glade;
The sleepy dingo watched him break
The bonds that curbed his flight;
And from his golden tresses shake
The fading gems of Night!
And wild goburras laughed aloud
Their merry morning songs,
As Echo answered in the depths
With a thousand thousand tongues;
The gully-depths where many a vine
Of ancient growth had crept,
To cluster round the hoary pine,
Where scanty mosses wept.

Huge stones, and damp and broken crags,
In wild chaotic heap,
Were lying at the barren base
Of the ferny hillside steep;
Between those fragments hollows lay,
Upfilled with fruitful ground,
Where many a modest floweret grew,
T...

Ye fates! who sternly point on sorrow's chart
The line of pain a wretch must still pursue,
To end the struggles of a bleeding heart,
And grace the triumph misery owes to you
How poor your pow'r! where fortitude, serene,
But smiling views the glimmering taper shine;
Time soon shall dim, and close the wearied scene,
Bestowing solace e'en on woes like mine.
Ah! stop your course too long I've felt your chain,
Too long the feeble influence of its pow'r;
The heir of grief may fall in love with pain,
And worst-misfortune feel the tranquil hour.
Hail, fortitude! blest friend life's ills to brave,
All misery boasts, shall wither in the grave!

It was a 'moral' end for which they fought;
Else how, when mighty Thrones were put to shame,
Could they, poor Shepherds, have preserved an aim,
A resolution, or enlivening thought?
Nor hath that moral good been 'vainly' sought;
For in their magnanimity and fame
Powers have they left, an impulse, and a claim
Which neither can be overturned nor bought.
Sleep, Warriors, sleep! among your hills repose!
We know that ye, beneath the stern control
Of awful prudence, keep the unvanquished soul:
And when, impatient of her guilt and woes,
Europe breaks forth; then, Shepherds! shall ye rise
For perfect triumph o'er your Enemies.

"Welcome, mighty chief, once more
Welcome to this grateful shore;
Now no mercenary foe
Aims again the fatal blow,--
Aims at thee the fatal blow.


"Virgins fair and matrons grave,
Those thy conquering arm did save,
Build for thee triumphal bowers;
Strew, ye fair, his way with flowers,--
Strew your hero's way with flowers."