Courage

From the first gleam of morning to the gray
Of peaceful evening, lo, a life unrolled!
In woven pictures all its changes told,
Its lights, its shadows, every flitting ray,
Till the long curtain, falling, dims the day,
Steals from the dial's disk the sunlight's gold,
And all the graven hours grow dark and cold
Where late the glowing blaze of noontide lay.
Ah! the warm blood runs wild in youthful veins, -
Let me no longer play with painted fire;
New songs for new-born days! I would not tire
The listening ears that wait for fresher strains
In phrase new-moulded, new-forged rhythmic chains,
With plaintive measures from a worn-out lyre.

Thro' the mists of years,
    Thro' the lies of men,
Your bloody sweat and tears,
Your desperate hopes and fears
    Reach us once again.

Brothers, who long ago,
    For life's bitter sake
Toiled and suffered so,
Robbery, insult, blow,
    Rope and sword and stake:

Toiled and suffered, till
    It burst, the brightening hope,
"Might and right" and "will and skill,"
That scorned, and does, and will,
    Sword and stake and rope!

Wat and Jack and John,
    Tyler, Straw, and Ball,
Souls that faltered not,
Hearts like white iron hot,
    Still we hear your call!

Yes, your "bell is rung,"
    Yes, for "now is time!"
Come hither, every one,
Brave ghosts whose day's not done,
    Avengers of old rime, -<...

You gave but will not give again
Until enough of Paudeen’s pence
By Biddy’s halfpennies have lain
To be ‘some sort of evidence,’
Before you’ll put your guineas down,
That things it were a pride to give
Are what the blind and ignorant town
Imagines best to make it thrive.
What cared Duke Ercole, that bid
His mummers to the market place,
What th’ onion-sellers thought or did
So that his Plautus set the pace
For the Italian comedies?
And Guidobaldo, when he made
That grammar school of courtesies
Where wit and beauty learned their trade
Upon Urbino’s windy hill,
Had sent no runners to and fro
That he might learn the shepherds’ will.
And when they drove out Cosimo,
Indifferent how the rancour ran,
He gave the hours they had set free
To...

What makes the Healing Art divine?
The bitter drug we buy and sell,
The brands that scorch, the blades that shine,
The scars we leave, the "cures" we tell?

Are these thy glories, holiest Art, -
The trophies that adorn thee best, -
Or but thy triumph's meanest part, -
Where mortal weakness stands confessed?

We take the arms that Heaven supplies
For Life's long battle with Disease,
Taught by our various need to prize
Our frailest weapons, even these.

But ah! when Science drops her shield -
Its peaceful shelter proved in vain -
And bares her snow-white arm to wield
The sad, stern ministry of pain;

When shuddering o'er the fount of life,
She folds her heaven-anointed wings,
To lift unmoved the glittering knife
That searches a...

Smile a little, smile a little,
    As you go along,
Not alone when life is pleasant,
    But when things go wrong.
Care delights to see you frowning,
    Loves to hear you sigh;
Turn a smiling face upon her,
    Quick the dame will fly.

Smile a little, smile a little,
    All along the road;
Every life must have its burden,
    Every heart its load.
Why sit down in gloom and darkness,
    With your grief to sup?
As you drink Fate's bitter tonic,
    Smile across the cup.

Smile upon the troubled pilgrims
    Whom you pass and meet;
Frowns are thorns, and smiles are blossoms
    Oft for weary feet.

Do not make the way seem harder
    By a sullen face,
Smile a little, smile a little,
    Brighten up the place....

I


Farewell to Leyden's lonely bound,
The Belgian Muse's sober seat;
Where dealing frugal gifts around
To all the favorites at her feet,
She trains the body's bulky frame
For passive, persevering toils;
And lest, from any prouder aim,
The daring mind should scorn her homely spoils,
She breathes maternal fogs to damp its restless flame.


Farewell the grave, pacific air,
Where never mountain zephyr blew:
The marshy levels lank and bare,
Which Pan, which Ceres never knew:
The Naiads, with obscene attire,
Urging in vain their urns to flow;
While round them chaunt the croking choir,
And haply sooth some lover's prudent woe,
Or prompt some restive bard and modulate his lyre.


Farewell, ye nymphs, whom sober care of gai...

There is a room serene and fair,
All palpitant with light and air;
Free from the dust, world's noise and fuss -
God's Tower-room in each of us.

Oh! many a stair our feet must press,
And climb from self to selflessness,
Before we reach that radiant room
Above the discord and the gloom.

So many, many stairs to climb,
But mount them gently - take your time;
Rise leisurely, nor strive to run -
Not so the mightiest feats are done.

Well doing of the little things:
Repression of the word that stings;
The tempest of the mind made still
By victory of the God-like will.

The hated task performed in love -
All these are stairs that wind above
The things that trouble and annoy,
Up to the Tower-room of joy.

Rise leisurely; t...

Dear Cloe, how blubber'd is that pretty Face?
Thy Cheek all on Fire, and Thy Hair all uncurl'd:
Pr'ythee quit this Caprice; and (as old Falstaf says)
Let Us e'en talk a little like Folks of This World.

How can'st Thou presume, Thou hast leave to destroy
The Beauties, which Venus but lent to Thy keeping?
Those Looks were design'd to inspire Love and Joy:
More ord'nary Eyes may serve People for weeping.

To be vext at a Trifle or two that I writ,
Your Judgment at once, and my Passion You wrong:
You take that for Fact, which will scarce be found Wit:
Odd's Life! must One swear to the Truth of a Song?

What I speak, my fair Cloe, and what I write, shews
The Diff'rence there is betwixt Nature and Art:
I court others in Verse; but I love Thee in Prose:
An...

Long are the days, and three times long the nights.
The weary hours are a heavy chain
Upon the feet of all Earth's dear delights,
Holding them ever prisoners to pain.
What shall beguile me to believe again
In hope, that faith within her parable writes
Of life, care reads with eyes whose tear-drops stain?
Shall such assist me to subdue the heights?
Long is the night, and over long the day. -
The burden of all being! - is it worse
Or better, lo! that they who toil and pray
May win not more than they who toil and curse?
A little sleep, a little love, ah me!
And the slow weigh up the soul's Calvary!

Who prop, thou ask’st in these bad days, my mind?
He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men,
Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,
And Tmolus’ hill, and Smyrna’s bay, though blind.
Much he, whose friendship I not long since won,
That halting slave, who in Nicopolis
Taught Arrian, when Vespasian’s brutal son
Cleared Rome of what most shamed him. But be his
My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul,
From first youth tested up to extreme old age,
Business could not make dull, nor passion wild:
Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole:
The mellow glory of the Attic stage;
Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.

Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade
On desolate sea and lonely sand,
Out of the silence and the shade
What is the voice of strange command
Calling you still, as friend calls friend
With love that cannot brook delay,
To rise and follow the ways that wend
Over the hills and far away?

Hark in the city, street on street
A roaring reach of death and life,
Of vortices that clash and fleet
And ruin in appointed strife,
Hark to it calling, calling clear,
Calling until you cannot stay
From dearer things than your own most dear
Over the hills and far away.

Out of the sound of the ebb-and-flow,
Out of the sight of lamp and star,
It calls you where the good winds blow,
And the unchanging meadows are:
From faded hopes and hopes agleam,

I.

Where was I last Friday night?
Within the forest of dark dreams
Following the blur of a goblin-light,
That led me over ugly streams,
Whereon the scum of the spawn was spread,
And the blistered slime, in stagnant seams;
Where the weed and the moss swam black and dead,
Like a drowned girl's hair in the ropy ooze:
And the jack-o'-lantern light that led,
Flickered the fox-fire trees o'erhead,
And the owl-like things at airy cruise.


II.

Where was I last Friday night?
Within the forest of dark dreams
Following a form of shadowy white
With my own wild face it seems.
Did a raven's wing just flap my hair?
Or a web-winged bat brush by my face?
Or the hand of something I did not dare
Look round to see in that obscene place?<...

Under an oak-tree in a woodland, where
The dreaming Spring had dropped it from her hair,
I found a flower, through which I seemed to gaze
Beyond the world and see what no man dare
Behold and live the myths of bygone days
Diana and Endymion, and the bare
Slim beauty of the boy whom Echo wooed;
And Hyacinthus whom Apollo dewed
With love and death: and Daphne, ever fair;
And that reed-slender girl whom Pan pursued.

I stood and gazed and through it seemed to see
The Dryad dancing by the forest tree,
Her hair wild blown: the Faun with listening ear,
Deep in the boscage, kneeling on one knee,
Watching the wandered Oread draw near,
Her wild heart beating like a honey-bee
Within a rose. All, all the myths of old,
All, all the bright shapes of the Age of Gol...

Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man,
Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions
Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance
And answers roar for roar, as spirits can:
I would some mild miraculous thunder ran
Above the applauded circus, in appliance
Of thine own nobler nature's strength and science,
Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan,
From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place
With holier light! that thou to woman's claim
And man's, mightst join beside the angel's grace
Of a pure genius sanctified from blame
Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace
To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame.

Say, which Immortal
Merits the highest reward?
With none contend I,
But I will give it
To the aye-changing,
Ever-moving
Wondrous daughter of Jove.
His best-beloved offspring.
Sweet Phantasy.

For unto her
Hath he granted
All the fancies which erst
To none allow'd he
Saving himself;
Now he takes his pleasure
In the mad one.

She may, crowned with roses,
With staff twined round with lilies,
Roam thro' flow'ry valleys,
Rule the butterfly-people,
And soft-nourishing dew
With bee-like lips
Drink from the blossom:

Or else she may
With fluttering hair
And gloomy looks
Sigh in the wind
Round rocky cliffs,
And thousand-hued.
Like morn and even.
Ever changing,
Like moonbeam's ligh...

The valley lay smiling before me,
    Where lately I left her behind;
Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me,
    That saddened the joy of my mind.
I looked for the lamp which, she told me,
    Should shine, when her Pilgrim returned;
But, tho' darkness began to infold me,
    No lamp from the battlements burned!

I flew to her chamber--'twas lonely,
    As if the loved tenant lay dead;--
Ah, would it were death, and death only!
    But no, the young false one had fled.
And there hung the lute that could soften
    My very worst pains into bliss;
While the hand, that had waked it so often,
    Now throbbed to a proud rival's kiss.

There was a time, falsest of women,
    When Breffni's good sword would have sought
That man, thro'...

I.

So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?

II.

My friend was already too good to lose,
And seemed in the way of improvement yet,
When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose
And over him drew her net.

III.

When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim!

IV.

And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagle’s the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!

V.

So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
My hand sought hers as in earnest n...

We walk on starry fields of white
    And do not see the daisies,
For blessings common in our sight
    We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
    To crown our lives with splendour,
And quite ignore our daily store
    Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way
    Upon our thought and feeling;
They hang about us all the day,
    Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
    We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives,
    And conquers if we let it.

There's not a day in all the year
    But holds some hidden pleasure,
And, looking back, joys oft appear
    To brim the past's wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
    Who love and l...