Courage

Farewell, for the bark has her breast to the tide,
And the rough arms of Ocean are stretched for his bride;
The winds from the mountain stream over the bay;
One clasp of the hand, then away and away!

I see the tall mast as it rocks by the shore;
The sun is declining, I see it once more;
To-day like the blade in a thick-waving field,
To-morrow the spike on a Highlander's shield.

Alone, while the cloud pours its treacherous breath,
With the blue lips all round her whose kisses are death;
Ah, think not the breeze that is urging her sail
Has left her unaided to strive with the gale.

There are hopes that play round her, like fires on the mast,
That will light the dark hour till its danger has past;
There are prayers that will plead with the storm when it ra...

Before the statue of a giant Hun,
There stood a dwarf, misshapen and uncouth.
His lifted eyes seemed asking:    'Why, in sooth,
Was I not fashioned like this mighty one?
Would God show favour to an older son
    Like earthly kings, and beggar without ruth
    Another, who sinned only by his youth?
Why should two lives in such divergence run?'

Strange, as he gazed, that from a vanished past
    No memories revived of war and strife,
    Of misused prowess, and of broken law.
That old Hun's spirit, in the dwarf re-cast,
    Lived out the sequence of an earthly life.
    IT WAS THE STATUE OF HIMSELF HE SAW!

In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore,
And cite those Sapho's we admire no more:
Fate doom'd the Fall of ev'ry Female Wit,
But doom'd it then when first Ardelia writ.
Of all Examples by the World confest,
I knew Ardelia could not quote the best;
Who, like her Mistress on Britannia's Throne;
Fights, and subdues in Quarrels not her own.
To write their Praise you but in vain essay;
Ev'n while you write, you take that Praise away:
Light to the Stars the Sun does thus restore,
But shines himself till they are seen no more.

("Toujours lui! lui partout!")

[XL., December, 1828.]


Above all others, everywhere I see
His image cold or burning!
My brain it thrills, and oftentime sets free
The thoughts within me yearning.
My quivering lips pour forth the words
That cluster in his name of glory -
The star gigantic with its rays of swords
Whose gleams irradiate all modern story.

I see his finger pointing where the shell
Should fall to slay most rabble,
And save foul regicides; or strike the knell
Of weaklings 'mid the tribunes' babble.
A Consul then, o'er young but proud,
With midnight poring thinned, and sallow,
But dreams of Empire pierce the transient cloud,
And round pale face and lank locks form the halo.

And soon the Caesar, with an eye ...

Against the light of a dawning white
My Skyline Riders stand,
There is trouble ahead for a dark year dead
And the selfish wrongs of a land;
There are hurrying feet of fools to repeat
The follies of Nineteen Eight,
But darkly still on each distant hill
My riders watch and wait.

My Skyline Riders are down and gone
As far as the eye can see,
And the horses stand in the shades of dawn
Where a single man holds three.
We feel the flush and we feel the thrill
Of the coming of Nineteen Nine,
For my Skyline Riders are over the hill
And into the firing line.

The skyline lifts while a storm-cloud lowers,
What’s that? A shot! All’s well!
There is news out there for this land of ours
That the tattling rifles tell.
A “thud” and a “thud” and a...

UPON HIS FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE DUKE'S THEATRE, AFTER HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND, 1682.


    In those cold regions which no summers cheer,
    Where brooding darkness covers half the year,
    To hollow caves the shivering natives go;
    Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks of snow:
    But when the tedious twilight wears away,
    And stars grow paler at the approach of day,
    The longing crowds to frozen mountains run;
    Happy who first can see the glimmering sun:
    The surly savage offspring disappear,
    And curse the bright successor of the year.
    Yet, though rough bears in covert seek defence,
    White foxes stay, with seeming innocence:
    That crafty kind with daylight can dispense.
    Still we are throng'd so full with Reynard's race,<...

"Where are the visions that round me once hovered,
    "Forms that shed grace from their shadows alone;
"Looks fresh as light from a star just discovered,
    "And voices that Music might take for her own?"
Time, while I spoke, with his wings resting o'er me,
    Heard me say, "Where are those visions, oh where?"
And pointing his wand to the sunset before me,
    Said, with a voice like the hollow wind, "There."

Fondly I looked, when the wizard had spoken,
    And there, mid the dim-shining ruins of day,
Saw, by their light, like a talisman broken,
    The last golden fragments of hope melt away.

THE INSCRIPTION

    Poor floating isle, tost on ill fortune's waves,
    Ordain'd by fate to be the land of slaves;
    Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand;
    Thou fix'd of old, be now the moving land!
    Although the metaphor be worn and stale,
    Betwixt a state, and vessel under sail;
    Let me suppose thee for a ship a while,
    And thus address thee in the sailor style.

Unhappy ship, thou art return'd in vain;
New waves shall drive thee to the deep again.[1]
Look to thyself, and be no more the sport
Of giddy winds, but make some friendly port.
Lost are thy oars, that used thy course to guide,
Like faithful counsellors, on either side.
Thy mast, which like some aged patriot stood,
The single pillar for his country's good,
To lea...

O thou, my Muse,
Beside the Kentish River running
Through water-meads where dews
Tossed flashing at thy feet
And tossing flashed again
When the timid herd
By thy swift passing stirred
Up-leapt and ran;

Thou that didst fleet
Thy shadow over dark October hills
By Aston, Weston, Saintbury, Willersey,
Winchcombe, and all the combes and hills
Of the green lonely land;

Thou that in May
Once when I saw thee sunning
Thyself so lovely there
Than the flushed flower more fair
Fallen from the wild apple spray,
Didst rise and sprinkling sunlight with thy hand
Shadow-like disappear in the deep-shadowy hedges
Between forsaken Buckle Street and the sparse sedges
Of young twin-breasted Honeybourne; -

O thou, my Muse,
Scarce ...

Above the bones
St. Ursula owns,
And those of the virgins she chaperons;
Above the boats,
And the bridge that floats,
And the Rhine and the steamers’ smoky throats;
Above the chimneys and quaint-tiled roofs,
Above the clatter of wheels and hoofs;
Above Newmarket’s open space,
Above that consecrated place
Where the genuine bones of the Magi seen are,
And the dozen shops of the real Farina;
Higher than even old Hohestrasse,
Whose houses threaten the timid passer,
Above them all,
Through scaffolds tall,
And spires like delicate limbs in splinters,
The great Cologne’s
Cathedral stones
Climb through the storms of eight hundred winters.

Unfinished there,
In high mid-air
The towers halt like a broken prayer;
Through years bela...

Before the wind, with rain-drowned stocks,
The pleated crimson hollyhocks
    Are bending;
And, smouldering in the breaking brown,
Above the hills that edge the town,
    The day is ending.

The air is heavy with the damp;
And, one by one, each cottage lamp
    Is lighted;
Infrequent passers of the street
Stroll on or stop to talk or greet,
    Benighted.

I look beyond my city yard,
And watch the white moon struggling hard,
    Cloud-buried;
The wind is driving toward the east,
A wreck of pearl, all cracked and creased
    And serried.

At times the moon, erupting, streaks
Some long cloud; like Andean peaks
    That double
Horizon-vast volcano chains,
The earthquake scars with lava veins
    That bubble.
...

[1]

To Madame Harvey.[2]

Sound reason and a tender heart
With thee are friends that never part.
A hundred traits might swell the roll; -
Suffice to name thy nobleness of soul;
Thy power to guide both men and things;
Thy temper open, bland and free,
A gift that draweth friends to thee,
To which thy firm affection clings,
Unmarr'd by age or change of clime,
Or tempests of this stormy time; -
All which deserve, in highest lyric,
A rich and lofty panegyric;
But no such thing wouldst thou desire,
Whom pomp displeases, praises tire.
Hence mine is simple, short, and plain;
Yet, madam, I would fain
Tack on a word or two
Of homage to your country due, -
A country well beloved by you.

With mind to match th...

Medical Unit -

Even as I see, and share with you in seeing,
The altar flame of your love's sacrifice;
And even as I bear before the hour the vision,
Your little hands in hospital and prison
Laid upon broken bodies, dying eyes,
So do I suffer for splendor of your being
Which leads you from me, and in separation
Lays on my breast the pain of memory.
Over your hands I bend
In silent adoration,
Dumb for a fear of sorrow without end,
Asking for consolation
Out of the sacrament of our separation,
And for some faithful word acceptable and true,
That I may know and keep the mystery:
That in this separation I go forth with you
And you to the world's end remain with me.

        *        *        *        *        *

How may I justify the ...

A horseman on a hilltop green
Drew rein, and wound his horn;
So bright he looked he might have been
The Herald of the Morn.

His steed was of the sovran strain
In Fancy’s meadows bred,
And pride was in his tossing mane,
And triumph in his tread.

The rider’s eyes like jewels glowed,
The World was in his hand,
As down the woodland way he rode
When Spring was in the land.

From golden hour to golden hour
For him the woodland sang.
And from the heart of every flower
A singing fairy sprang.

He rode along with rein so free,
And, as he rode, the Blue
Mysterious Bird of Fantasy
Ever before him flew.

He rode by cot and castle dim
Through all the greenland gay;
Bright eyes through casements glanced at him:
H...

I

Descend ye Nine! descend and sing;
The breathing instruments inspire,
Wake into voice each silent string,
And sweep the sounding lyre!
In a sadly-pleasing strain
Let the warbling lute complain:
Let the loud trumpet sound,
'Till the roofs all around
The shrill echo's rebound:
While in more lengthen'd notes and slow,
The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow.
Hark! the numbers, soft and clear,
Gently steal upon the ear;
Now louder, and yet louder rise,
And fill with spreading sounds the skies;
Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,
In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats;
'Till, by degrees, remote and small,
The strains decay,
And melt away,
In a dying, dying fall.

II

By Music, minds an equal tem...

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provenial song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leav...

CHORUS.

To the strand! quick, mount the bark!

If no favouring zephyrs blow,

Ply the oar and nimbly row,
And with zeal your prowess mark!

O'er the sea we thus career.

RINALDO.


Oh, let me linger one short moment here!
'Tis heaven's decree, I may not hence away.
The rugged cliffs, the wood-encircled bay,
Hold me a prisoner, and my flight delay.

Ye were so fair, but now that dream is o'er;
The charms of earth, the charms of heaven are nought.
What keeps me in this spot so terror-fraught?

My only joy is fled for evermore.

Let me taste those days so sweet,

Heav'n-descended, once again!
Heart, dear heart! ay, warmly beat!

Spirit true, recall those days

Freeborn breath thy gen...

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace
Radiant palace reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This all this was in the olden
Time long ago),
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tunëd law,
Bound about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pear...