Courage

From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees
The soft blue starlight through the one small window,
The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,
And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.

It is so long, indeed, since I have written,
Two years, almost, your last is turning yellow,
That these first words I write seem cold and strange.
Are you the man I knew, or have you altered?
Altered, of course, just as I too have altered,
And whether towards each other, or more apart,
We cannot say . . . I’ve just re-read your letter,
Not through forgetfulness, but more for pleasure.

Pondering much on all you say in it
Of mystic consciousness, divine conversion,
The sense of oneness with the infinite,
Faith in the world, its beauty, and its purpose ...

Native moments! when you come upon me - Ah you are here now!
Give me now libidinous joys only!
Give me the drench of my passions!
Give me life coarse and rank! To-day,
I go consort with nature's darlings - to-night too;
I am for those who believe in loose delights - I share the midnight orgies of young men;
I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drinkers;
The echoes ring with our indecent calls;
I take for my love some prostitute - I pick out some low person for my dearest friend,
He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate - he shall be one condemn'd by others for deeds done;
I will play a part no longer - Why should I exile myself from my companions?
O you shunn'd persons! I at least do not shun you, I come forthwith in your midst - I will be your poet,
I will be more to you th...

I.
What am I doing, you say to me, ‘wasting the sweet summer hours’?
Haven’t you eyes? I am dressing the grave of a woman with flowers.

II.
For a woman ruin’d the world, as God’s own scriptures tell,
And a man ruin’d mine, but a woman, God bless her, kept me from Hell.

III.
Love me? O yes, no doubt—how long—till you threw me aside!
Dresses and laces and jewels and never a ring for the bride.

IV.
All very well just now to be calling me darling and sweet,
And after a while would it matter so much if I came on the street?

V.
You when I met you first—when he brought you!—I turn’d away
And the hard blue eyes have it still, that stare of a beast of prey.

VI.
You were his friend—you—you—when he promised to make me his bride,
And you...

1

It's good and beautiful to be a soldier for a year.
You live longer that way.    And one is certainly pleased
With each scrap of time that one snatches from death.
This poor brain, shredded by longing for the city,
Bloody from books, bodies, evenings,
Inconsolably sad and filled with every sin,
Three quarters destroyed already - can only,
Standing at attention and marching on parade,
Swinging arms and legs,
Rust gently in a corner of the skull.
Oh, the stink in a marching column.
Oh, speed-marching across a lovely land in the spring.


2

I must come one hour before the others,
Because I have shot badly.
I certainly won't be promoted.
And I must do extra drills as punishment,
Because, while the others, in accordance with orders...

Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flow'rs,
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,
Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name.
Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom
Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home;
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea.
Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort,
To taste awhile the pleasures of a court;
In various talk th' instructive hours they pass'd,
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;
One speaks the glory of the British queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At ev'ry word a reputation dies.
Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,<...

O day, so sicklied o'er with night!
O dreadful fruit of fallen dusk!
A Circe orange, golden-bright,
With horror 'neath its husk.

And I, who gave the promise heed
That made life's tempting surface fair,
Have I not eaten to the seed
Its ashes of despair!

O silence of the drifted grass!
And immemorial eloquence
Of stars and winds and waves that pass!
And God's indifference!

Leave me alone with sleep that knows
Not any thing that life may keep
Not e'en the pulse that comes and goes
In germs that climb and creep.

Or if an aspiration pale
Must quicken there, oh, let the spot
Grow weeds! that dost may so prevail,
Where spirit once could not!

"Beloved Vale!" I said, "when I shall con
Those many records of my childish years,
Remembrance of myself and of my peers
Will press me down: to think of what is gone
Will be an awful thought, if life have one."
But, when into the Vale I came, no fears
Distressed me; from mine eyes escaped no tears;
Deep thought, or dread remembrance, had I none.
By doubts and thousand petty fancies crost
I stood, of simple shame the blushing Thrall;
So narrow seemed the brooks, the fields so small!
A Juggler's balls old Time about him tossed;
I looked, I stared, I smiled, I laughed; and all
The weight of sadness was in wonder lost.

I

Hot through Troy's ruin Menelaus broke
To Priam's palace, sword in hand, to sate
On that adulterous whore a ten years' hate
And a king's honour. Through red death, and smoke,
And cries, and then by quieter ways he strode,
Till the still innermost chamber fronted him.
He swung his sword, and crashed into the dim
Luxurious bower, flaming like a god.

High sat white Helen, lonely and serene.
He had not remembered that she was so fair,
And that her neck curved down in such a way;
And he felt tired. He flung the sword away,
And kissed her feet, and knelt before her there,
The perfect Knight before the perfect Queen.


II

So far the poet. How should he behold
That journey home, the long connubial years?
He does not tell you how...

I. SONG.

Look Nymphs, and Shepherds look,
What sudden blaze of majesty
Is that which we from hence descry
Too divine to be mistook:
This this is she
To whom our vows and wishes bend,
Heer our solemn search hath end.

Fame that her high worth to raise,
Seem'd erst so lavish and profuse,
We may justly now accuse
Of detraction from her praise,
Less then half we find exprest,
Envy bid conceal the rest.

Mark what radiant state she spreds,
In circle round her shining throne,
Shooting her beams like silver threds,
This this is she alone,
Sitting like a Goddes bright,
In the center of her light.
Might she the wise Latona be,
Or the towred Cybele,
Mother of a hunderd gods;
Juno dare's not give her odds;
Who had t...

1.
I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

2.
There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;
Faint oxslips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets -
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth -
Its mother's face with Heaven's collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

3.
And in th...

Poi che spiegate.


        Now that these wings to speed my wish ascend,
                The more I feel vast air beneath my feet,
                The more toward boundless air on pinions fleet,
                Spurning the earth, soaring to heaven, I tend:
        Nor makes them stoop their flight the direful end
                Of Daedal's son; but upward still they beat:--
                What life the while with my life can compete,
                Though dead to earth at last I shall descend?
        My own heart's voice in the void air I hear:
                Where wilt thou bear me, O rash man? Recall
                Thy daring will! This boldness waits on fear!
        Dread not, I answer, that tremendous fall:
                Strike through the clo...

Now that all hearts are glad, all faces bright,
Our aged Sovereign sits, to the ebb and flow
Of states and kingdoms, to their joy or woe,
Insensible. He sits deprived of sight,
And lamentably wrapt in twofold night,
Whom no weak hopes deceived; whose mind ensued,
Through perilous war, with regal fortitude,
Peace that should claim respect from lawless Might.
Dread King of Kings, vouchsafe a ray divine
To his forlorn condition! let thy grace
Upon his inner soul in mercy shine;
Permit his heart to kindle, and to embrace
(Though it were only for a moment's space)
The triumphs of this hour; for they are thine!

Just above yon sandy bar,
    As the day grows fainter and dimmer,
Lonely and lovely, a single star
    Lights the air with a dusky glimmer

Into the ocean faint and far
    Falls the trail of its golden splendor,
And the gleam of that single star
    Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.

Chrysaor, rising out of the sea,
    Showed thus glorious and thus emulous,
Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe,
    Forever tender, soft, and tremulous.

Thus o'er the ocean faint and far
    Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly;
Is it a God, or is it a star
    That, entranced, I gaze on nightly!

The Shape alone let others prize,
The Features of the Fair;
I look for Spirit in her Eyes,
And Meaning in her Air.
A Damask Cheek, an Iv'ry Arm,
Shall ne'er my Wishes win,
Give me an animated Form,
That speaks a Mind within.
A Face where awful Honour shines,
Where Sense and Sweetness move,
And Angel Innocence refines,
The Tenderness of Love.

These are the Soul of Beauty's frame,
Without whose vital Aid,
Unfinish'd all her Features seem,
And all her Roses dead.
But ah! where both their Charms unite,
How perfect is the View,
With ev'ry Image of Delight,
With Graces ever new.
Of Pow'r to charm the greatest Woe,
The wildest Rage control,
Diffusing Mildness o'er the Brow,
And Rapture thro' the Soul.
Their Pow'r but fain...

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]

SEPTEMBER 10, 18 - .

        Ah me! it makes a sinner wondrous blue,
        To see so many other sinners too!
        When I rake over all my faults, and then
        Notice the same, or worse, in other men,
        It makes me very much surprised and sad,
        That Heaven should see Earth turning out so bad!

        Vice, vice, vice, vice! The country's mean enough,
        And has some villains that are pretty rough;
        But in this town, where art and nature both
        Are shoved into their very greatest growth,
        And where the utmost of all things is found,
        The Devil has his best men on the ground,
        And gives them weapons meeting his own views,
        And all th...

There in the midst of gloom the church-spire rose,
And not a star lit any side of heaven;
In glades not far the damp reeds coldly touched
Their sides, like soldiers dead before they fall;
There in the belfry clung the sleeping bat, -
Most abject creature, hanging like a leaf
Down from the bell-tongue, silent as the speech
The dead have lost ere they are laid in graves.

A melancholy prelude I would sing
To song more drear, while thought soars into gloom.
Find me the harbor of the roaming storm,
Or end of souls whose doom is life itself!
So vague, yet surely sad, the song I dream
And utter not. So sends the tide its roll, -
Unending chord of horror for a woe
We but half know, even when we die of it.

Corn-Colored clouds upon a sky of gold,
And 'mid their sheaves, where, like a daisy bloom
Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,
The star of twilight flames, as Ruth, 't is told,
Dreamed homesick 'mid the harvest fields of old,
The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume
From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume
Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled.
Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill
Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily
Stumbling the stone, its foam like some white foot:
Save for the note of one far whippoorwill,
And in my heart her name, like some sweet bee
Within a flow'r, blowing a fairy flute.

They bathed in the fire-flooded fountains;
    Life girdled them round and about;
They slept in the clefts of the mountains:
    The stars called them forth with a shout.

They prayed, but their worship was only
    The wonder at nights and at days,
As still as the lips of the lonely
    Though burning with dumbness of praise.

No sadness of earth ever captured
    Their spirits who bowed at the shrine;
They fled to the Lonely enraptured
    And hid in the Darkness Divine.

At twilight as children may gather
    They met at the doorway of death,
The smile of the dark hidden Father
    The Mother with magical breath.

Untold of in song or in story,
    In days long forgotten of men,
Their eyes were yet blind with a glory
    T...