Courage

That was the sound of the wicket!
That was the latch as it rose!
    No--the wind that through the thicket
    Of the poplars whirring goes.

Put on thy beauty, foliage-vaulted roof,
Her to receive: with silent welcome grace her;
Ye branches build a shadowy room, eye-proof,
With lovely night and stillness to embrace her,
Ye airs caressing, wake, nor keep aloof,
In sport and gambol turning still to face her,
As, with its load of beauty, lightly borne,
Glides in the fairy foot, and dawns my morn.

What is that rustling the hedges?
She, with her hurrying pace?
    No, a bird among the sedges,
    Startled from its hiding-place!

Quench thy sunk torch, O Day! Steal out, appear,
Dim, ghostly Night, with dumbness us entrancing!
Spread thy ro...

Within the broken Vatican
    The murdered Pope is lying dead.
The soldiers of Valerian
    Their evil hands are wet and red.

Unarmed, unmoved, St. Laurence waits,
    His cassock is his only mail.
The troops of Hell have burst the gates,
    But Christ is Lord, He shall prevail.

They have encompassed him with steel,
    They spit upon his gentle face,
He smiles and bleeds, nor will reveal
    The Church's hidden treasure-place.

Ah, faithful steward, worthy knight,
    Well hast thou done.    Behold thy fee!
Since thou hast fought the goodly fight
    A martyr's death is fixed for thee.

St. Laurence, pray for us to bear
    The faith which glorifies thy name.
St. Laurence, pray for us to share
    The wounds of Love's con...

I mark the months in liveries dank and dry,
The noontides many-shaped and hued;
I see the nightfall shades subtrude,
And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by.

I view the evening bonfires of the sun
On hills where morning rains have hissed;
The eyeless countenance of the mist
Pallidly rising when the summer droughts are done.

I have seen the lightning-blade, the leaping star,
The cauldrons of the sea in storm,
Have felt the earthquake's lifting arm,
And trodden where abysmal fires and snow-cones are.

I learn to prophesy the hid eclipse,
The coming of eccentric orbs;
To mete the dust the sky absorbs,
To weigh the sun, and fix the hour each planet dips.

I witness fellow earth-men surge and strive;
Assemblies meet, and throb,...

I.

I woke in the night, and the darkness was heavy and deep:
I had known it was dark in my sleep,
    And I rose and looked out,
And the fathomless vault was all sparkling, set thick round about
With the ancient inhabiters silent, and wheeling too far
For man's heart, like a voyaging frigate, to sail, where remote
In the sheen of their glory they float,
Or man's soul, like a bird, to fly near, of their beams to partake,
    And dazed in their wake,
Drink day that is born of a star.
I murmured, "Remoteness and greatness, how deep you are set,
How afar in the rim of the whole;
You know nothing of me, nor of man, nor of earth, O, nor yet
Of our light-bearer, - drawing the marvellous moons as they roll,
    Of our regent, the sun."
I look on you trembling, a...

Why rings the knell of the funeral bell from a hundred village shrines?
Through broad Fingall, where hasten all those long and ordered lines?
With tear and sigh they're passing by--the matron and the maid--
Has a hero died--is a nation's pride in that cold coffin laid?
With frown and curse, behind the hearse, dark men go tramping on--
Has a tyrant died, that they cannot hide their wrath till the rites
are done?


THE CHANT.

"Ululu! ululu! high on the wind,
There's a home for the slave where no fetters can bind.
Woe, woe to his slayers!"--comes wildly along,
With the trampling of feet and the funeral song.

And now more clear
It swells on the ear;
Breathe low, and listen, 'tis solemn to hear.

"Ululu! ululu! wail for the dead....

Thus we from bridge to bridge, with other talk,
The which my drama cares not to rehearse,
Pass'd on; and to the summit reaching, stood
To view another gap, within the round
Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs.

Marvelous darkness shadow'd o'er the place.

In the Venetians' arsenal as boils
Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear
Their unsound vessels; for th' inclement time
Sea-faring men restrains, and in that while
His bark one builds anew, another stops
The ribs of his, that hath made many a voyage;
One hammers at the prow, one at the poop;
This shapeth oars, that other cables twirls,
The mizen one repairs and main-sail rent
So not by force of fire but art divine
Boil'd here a glutinous thick mass, that round
Lim'd all the shore beneat...

Sailor.

You, who have compassed land and sea
Now all unburied lie;
All vain your store of human lore,
For you were doomed to die.
The sire of Pelops likewise fell,
Jove's honored mortal guest--
So king and sage of every age
At last lie down to rest.
Plutonian shades enfold the ghost
Of that majestic one
Who taught as truth that he, forsooth,
Had once been Pentheus' son;
Believe who may, he's passed away
And what he did is done.
A last night comes alike to all--
One path we all must tread,
Through sore disease or stormy seas
Or fields with corpses red--
Whate'er our deeds that pathway leads
To regions of the dead.


Shade.

The fickle twin Illyrian gales
O'erwhelmed me on the wave--
But ...

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer? - With the sun,
Opening the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds? - Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
        Lest owls should prey
        Undazzled at noon-day,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer? - In the west,
Blushing their last ...

The tropic day's redundant charms
    Cool twilight soothes away,
The sun slips down behind the palms
    And leaves the landscape grey.
    I want to take you in my arms
    And kiss your lips away!

I wake with sunshine in my eyes
    And find the morning blue,
A night of dreams behind me lies
    And all were dreams of you!
    Ah, how I wish the while I rise,
    That what I dream were true.

The weary day's laborious pace,
    I hasten and beguile
By fancies, which I backwards trace
    To things I loved erstwhile;
    The weary sweetness of your face,
    Your faint, illusive smile.

The silken softness of your hair
    Where faint bronze shadows are,
Your strangely slight and youthful air,
    No passions seem to ...

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame;
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed frame.
Not here, O Apollo!
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea,
Where the moon-silver'd inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks,
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull'd by the rills,
Lie wrapped in their blankets
Asleep on the hills.
What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower'd broom?
What sweet-breathing presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What v...

The great sun sinks behind the town
Through a red mist of Volnay wine....
But what's the use of setting down
That glorious blaze behind the town?
You'll only skip the page, you'll look
For newer pictures in this book;
You've read of sunsets rich as mine.

A fresh wind fills the evening air
With horrid crying of night birds....
But what reads new or curious there
When cold winds fly across the air?
You'll only frown; you'll turn the page,
But find no glimpse of your "New Age
Of Poetry" in my worn-out words.

Must winds that cut like blades of steel
And sunsets swimming in Volnay,
The holiest, cruellest pains I feel,
Die stillborn, because old men squeal
For something new: "Write something new:
We've read this poem, that on...

Beneath the shade a spreading Beech displays,
Hylas and Aegon sung their rural lays,
This mourn'd a faithless, that an absent Love,
And Delia's name and Doris' fill'd the Grove.
Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succour bring;
Hylas and Ægon's rural lays I sing.
Thou, whom the Nine with Plautus' wit inspire,
The art of Terence, and Menander's fire;
Whose sense instructs us, and whose humour charms,
Whose judgement sways us, and whose spirit warms!
Oh, skill'd in Nature! see the hearts of Swains,
Their artless passions, and their tender pains.
Now setting Phœbus shone serenely bright,
And fleecy clouds were streak'd with purple light;
When tuneful Hylas with melodious moan,
Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains groan.
Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs awa...

A late lark twitters from the quiet skies;
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, grey city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.

The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze.    The spires
Shine, and are changed.    In the valley
Shadows rise.    The lark sings on.    The sun,
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night -
Night with her train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.

So be my passing!
My task accomplished and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gathered to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.

1876

Breakfast at the Century Club, New York, May, 1879.

Such kindness! the scowl of a cynic would soften,
His pulse beat its way to some eloquent words,
Alas! my poor accents have echoed too often,
Like that Pinafore music you've some of you heard.

Do you know me, dear strangers - the hundredth time comer
At banquets and feasts since the days of my Spring?
Ah! would I could borrow one rose of my Summer,
But this is a leaf of my Autumn I bring.


I look at your faces, - I'm sure there are some from
The three-breasted mother I count as my own;
You think you remember the place you have come from,
But how it has changed in the years that have flown!

Unaltered, 't is true, is the hall we call "Funnel,"
Still fights the "Old South" in the battle for li...

Upon time's surging, billowy sea
A ship now slowly disappears,
With freight no human eye can see,
But weighing just one hundred years.

Their sighs, their tears, their weary moans,
Their joy and pleasure, pomp and pride,
Their angry and their gentle tones,
Beneath its waves forever hide.

Yes, sunk within oblivion's waves,
They'll partly live in memory;
To youth, who will their secrets crave,
Mostly exist in history.

Ah, what a truth steps in this strain
They are not lost within time's sea;
Their words and actions live again,
And blight or light eternity!

A new ship comes within our view,
Laden with dreams both sad and blest;
To youth they're tinged with roseate hue;
To weary ones bring longed-for rest.

And still...

Roxana, from the Court returning late,
Sigh'd her soft sorrow at St James's gate:
Such heavy thoughts lay brooding in her breast,
Not her own chairmen with more weight oppress'd:
They curse the cruel weight they're doom'd to bear;
She in more gentle sounds express'd her care.

'Was it for this, that I these roses wear?
For this, new-set the jewels for my hair?
Ah, Princess! with what zeal have I pursued!
Almost forgot the duty of a prude.
This king I never could attend too soon;
I miss'd my prayers, to get me dress'd by noon.
For thee, ah! what for thee did I resign?
My passions, pleasures, all that e'er was mine:
I've sacrificed both modesty and ease;
Left operas, and went to filthy plays:
Double-entendres shock'd my tender ear;
Yet even this...

O thou son of the dark locks and eloquent tongue,
With the brain of a statesman sagacious, and strong,
And the heart of a poet, half love, and half fire,
Thou hast many to love thee and more to admire;
But I bore thee, and nursed thee, and joyed at the fame
Which the sons of the stranger have spread round thy
I am Erin, green Erin, the "Gem of the sea."    [name.
Listen, then, to thy mother's voice, D'Arcy McGee.

Since the crown from my head, and the sceptre are gone
To the hand of the stranger, who held what he won,
I have borne much of sorrow, of wrong and of shame,
I've been spoken against with scorning and blame;
But still have my daughters been spotless and fair,
And my sons have been dauntless to do and to dare;
For as great as thou art and most precious to ...

I' dolci colli ov' io lasciai me stesso.

HE LEAVES VAUCLUSE, BUT HIS SPIRIT REMAINS THERE WITH LAURA.


    The loved hills where I left myself behind,
Whence ever 'twas so hard my steps to tear,
Before me rise; at each remove I bear
The dear load to my lot by Love consign'd.
Often I wonder inly in my mind,
That still the fair yoke holds me, which despair
Would vainly break, that yet I breathe this air;
Though long the chain, its links but closer bind.
And as a stag, sore struck by hunter's dart,
Whose poison'd iron rankles in his breast,
Flies and more grieves the more the chase is press'd,
So I, with Love's keen arrow in my heart,
Endure at once my death and my delight,
Rack'd with long grief, and weary with vain flight.

MACGREGO...