Courage

(A Negro Sermon.)



Once, in a night as black as ink,
She drove him out when he would not drink.
Round the house there were men in wait
Asleep in rows by the Gaza gate.
But the Holy Spirit was in this man.
Like a gentle wind he crept and ran.
("It is midnight," said the big town clock.)

He lifted the gates up, post and lock.
The hole in the wall was high and wide
When he bore away old Gaza's pride
Into the deep of the night: -
The bold Jack Johnson Israelite, -
Samson -
The Judge,
The Nazarite.

The air was black, like the smoke of a dragon.
Samson's heart was as big as a wagon.
He sang like a shining golden fountain.
He sweated up to the top of the mountain.
He threw down the gates with a noise like judgment.

It is thirty moons since I slung me hook
From the job at the hay and corn,
Took me solemn oath, 'n' I straight forsook
All the ways of life, dinkum ways 'n' crook,
'N' the things on which it was good to look
Since the day when a bloke was born.

I was give a gun, 'n' a bay'net bright,
'N' a 'ell of a swag iv work,
N' I dipped my lid to the big pub light,
To the ole push cobbers I give “Good-night!”
Slipped a kiss to 'er, 'n' I wings me flight
For a date with the demon Turk.

Ez we pricked our heel to the skitin' drum.
Square 'n' all, I was gone a mile.
With a perky air, 'n' a 'eart ez glum
Ez a long-dead cod, I was blind 'n' dumb,
Holdin' do the tear that was bound to come
At a word or a friendly smile.

Now I've seen it all, I may com...

From babyhood I have known the beauty of earth,
I learnt it, I think, in the strange months before birth,
I learnt it passing and passing by each moon
From the harvest month into my natal June.
My mother, the dear, the lovely I hardly knew,
Bearing me must have walked and wandered through
Stubble of silver or gold, as moon or sun
Lit earth in the days when my body was begun.
And then October with leaves splendid and blown
She watched with my little body a little grown,
And winter fell, and into our being passed
Firm frost and icy rivers and the blast
Of winds that on the iron clods of plough
Beat with an unseen charging. Then the bough
Of spring came green, and her glad body stirred
With a son's wombed leaping, and she heard
Songs of the air and woods and wate...

        1.

        THE song birds that come to me night and morn,
        Fly oft away and vanish if I sleep,
        Nor to my fowling-net will one return:
        Is the thing ever ours we cannot keep?--
        But their souls go not out into the deep.
        What matter if with changed song they come back?
        Old strength nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack.

        2.

        Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou!
        Sunset faints after sunset into the night,
        Splendorously dying from thy window-sill--
        For ever. Sad our poverty doth bow
        Before the riches of thy making might:
        Sweep from thy space thy systems at thy will--
        In thee the sun sets every sunset still.

        3.
<...

I, who was always counted, they say,
Rather a bad stick any way,
Splintered all over with dodges and tricks,
Known as "the worst of the Deacon's six;"
I, the truant, saucy and bold,
The one black sheep in my father's fold,
"Once on a time," as the stories say,
Went over the hill on a winter's day--
Over the hill to the poor-house.

Tom could save what twenty could earn;
But givin' was somethin' he ne'er would learn;
Isaac could half o' the Scriptur's speak--
Committed a hundred verses a week;
Never forgot, an' never slipped;
But "Honor thy father and mother" he skipped;
So over the hill to the poor-house.

As for Susan, her heart was kind
An' good--what there was of it, mind;
Nothin' too big, an' nothin' too nice,
Nothin' she wouldn't ...

1.
The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries
From the broad moonlight of the sky,
Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, -
Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn,
Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.

2.
Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,
Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;
My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves
Are filled with my bright presence, and the air
Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.

3.
The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;
All men who do or even imagine ill
Fly me, and from the glory of my ray
Good minds and open actions take new might,

A fox once practised, 'tis believed,
A stratagem right well conceived.
The wretch, when in the utmost strait
By dogs of nose so delicate,
Approach'd a gallows, where,
A lesson to like passengers,
Or clothed in feathers or in furs,
Some badgers, owls, and foxes, pendent were.
Their comrade, in his pressing need,
Arranged himself among the dead.
I seem to see old Hannibal
Outwit some Roman general,
And sit securely in his tent,
The legions on some other scent.
But certain dogs, kept back
To tell the errors of the pack,
Arriving where the traitor hung,
A fault in fullest chorus sung.
Though by their bark the welkin rung,
Their master made them hold the tongue.
Suspecting not a trick so odd,
Said he, "The rogue's beneath the sod.
My d...

It wor dark an mi way wor across a wild mooar,
An noa signs could aw find ov a track,
'Twor a place whear aw nivver had rambled befooar;
An aw eearnestly wished misen back.
As aw went on an on mooar uneven it grew,
An farther mi feet seem'd to stray,
When a chap made me start, as he shaated "Halloa!
Maister, yor missin yor way!"

Wi' his help aw contrived to land safely back hooam,
An aw thowt as o'th' hearthstun aw set,
What a blessin 'twod be if when other fowk rooam,
They should meet sich a friend as aw'd met.
An aw sat daan to write just theas words ov advice,
Soa read 'em young Yorksher fowk, pray;
An aw'st think for mi trubble aw'm paid a rare price,
If aw've saved one throo missin ther way.

Yo lads 'at's but latly begun to wear hats,
An ...

In the prison-house of the dark
    I lay with open eyes,
And pale beyond the pale windows
    I saw the dawn rise.
From past the bounds of space
    Where earthly vapours climb,
There stirred the voice I shall not hear
    On this side Time.
There is one death for the body,
    And one death for the heart,
And one prayer for the hope of the end,
    When some links part.
Christ, from uncounted leagues,
Beyond the sun and moon,
Strike with the sword of Thine own pity -
    Bring the dawn soon.

"A Day after the Fair." - Old Proverb.


John Day he was the biggest man
Of all the coachman kind,
With back too broad to be conceived
By any narrow mind.

The very horses knew his weight,
When he was in the rear,
And wished his box a Christmas box,
To come but once a year.

Alas! against the shafts of love,
What armor can avail?
Soon Cupid sent an arrow through
His scarlet coat of mail.

The barmaid of the Crown he loved,
From whom he never ranged,
For though he changed his horses there,
His love he never changed.

He thought her fairest of all fares,
So fondly love prefers;
And often, among twelve outsides,
Deemed no outside like hers!

One day, as she was sitting down
Beside the porter-...

Farther and farther away, alas! at each moment the vessel

Hastens, as onward it glides, cleaving the foam-cover'd flood!
Long is the track plough'd up by the keel where dolphins are sporting,

Following fast in its rear, while it seems flying pursuit.
All forebodes a prosperous voyage; the sailor with calmness

Leans 'gainst the sail, which alone all that is needed performs.
Forward presses the heart of each seamen, like colours and streamers;

Backward one only is seen, mournfully fix'd near the mast,
While on the blue tinged mountains, which fast are receding, he gazeth,

And as they sink in the sea, joy from his bosom departs.
Vanish'd from thee, too, oh Dora, is now the vessel that robs thee

Of thine Alexis, thy friend, ah, thy betrothed as well!

(See Note 20)

Many forms belong to greatness.
He who now has left us bore it
As a doubt that made him sleepless,
But at last gave revelation, -
As a sight-enhancing power,
That gave visions joined with anguish
Over all beyond our seeing, -
As a flight on labor's pinions
From the thought unto the certain,
Thence aloft to intuition, -
Restless haste and changeful ardor,
God-inspired and unceasing,
Through the wide world ever storming,
Took its load of thoughts and doubtings,
Bore them, threw them off, - and took them,
Never tired, never listless.

Still! for he had one haven of rest:
Family-life peace-bestowing!
Powers of light gave repose to his breast,
Calm 'mid the strife of his knowing.

Softly with music his wife led...

See through yon cloud that rolls in wrath,
One little star benignant peep,
To light along their trackless path
The wanderers of the stormy deep.

And thus, oh Hope! thy lovely form
In sorrow's gloomy night shall be
The sun that looks through cloud and storm
Upon a dark and moonless sea.

When heaven is all serene and fair,
Full many a brighter gem we meet;
'Tis when the tempest hovers there,
Thy beam is most divinely sweet.

The rainbow, when the sun declines,
Like faithless friend will disappear;
Thy light, dear star! more brightly shines
When all is wail and weeping here.

And though Aurora's stealing beam
May wake a morning of delight,
'Tis only thy consoling beam
Will smile amid affliction's night.

The year was dying, and the day
Was almost dead;
The West, beneath a sombre gray,
Was sombre red.
The gravestones in the ghostly light,
'Mid trees half bare,
Seemed phantoms, clothed in glimmering white,
That haunted there.

I stood beside the grave of one,
Who, here in life,
Had wronged my home; who had undone
My child and wife.
I stood beside his grave until
The moon came up -
As if the dark, unhallowed hill
Lifted a cup.

No stone was there to mark his grave,
No flower to grace -
'T was meet that weeds alone should wave
In such a place.
I stood beside his grave until
The stars swam high,
And all the night was iron still
From sky to sky.

What cared I if strange eyes seemed bright
Within the gloom!<...

Thou shaking thy dark shadows down,
Like leaves before the first leaves fall,
Pourest upon the head of night
Her loveliest loveliness of all--
Dark leaves that tremble
When soft airs unto softer call.

O, darker, softer fall her thoughts
Upon the cold fields of my mind,
Weaving a quiet music there
Like leaf-shapes trembling in least wind:
Dark thoughts that linger
When the light's gone and the night's blind.

I see her there beneath your boughs.
Dark chestnut, though you see her not;
Her white face and white hands are clear
As the moon in your stretched arms caught;
But stranger, clearer,
The living shadows of her thought.

FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.


Lady! where'er you roam, whatever land
Woos the bright touches of that artist hand;
Whether you sketch the valley's golden meads,
Where mazy Linth his lingering current leads;[1]
Enamored catch the mellow hues that sleep,
At eve, on Meillerie's immortal steep;
Or musing o'er the Lake, at day's decline,
Mark the last shadow on that holy shrine,[2]
Where, many a night, the shade of Tell complains
Of Gallia's triumph and Helvetia's chains;
Oh! lay the pencil for a moment by,
Turn from the canvas that creative eye,
And let its splendor, like the morning ray
Upon a shepherd's harp, illume my lay.

Yet, Lady, no--for song so rude as mine,
Chase not the wonders of your art divine;
Still, radiant...

At early dawn, or rather when the air
Glimmers with fading light, and shadowy Eve
Is busiest to confer and to bereave;
Then, pensive Votary! let thy feet repair
To Gordale-chasm, terrific as the lair
Where the young lions couch; for so, by leave
Of the propitious hour, thou may'st perceive
The local Deity, with oozy hair
And mineral crown, beside his jagged urn,
Recumbent: Him thou may'st behold, who hides
His lineaments by day, yet there presides,
Teaching the docile waters how to turn,
Or (if need be) impediment to spurn,
And force their passage to the salt-see tides!

Be still my heart: I hear them come:
    Those sounds announce my lover near:
The march that brings our warriors home
    Proclaims he'll soon be here.

        Hark, the distant tread,
        O'er the mountain's head,
While hills and dales repeat the sound;
        And the forest deer
        Stand still to hear,
As those echoing steps ring round.

Be still my heart. I hear them come,
    Those sounds that speak my soldier near;
Those joyous steps seem winged fox home.--
    Rest, rest, he'll soon be here.

But hark, more faint the footsteps grow,
    And now they wind to distant glades;
Not here their home,--alas, they go
    To gladden happier maids!

    Like sounds in a dream,
    The footsteps seem,
As down the hi...