Courage

"Non injussa cano."
Virg.


POET. I sing of POPE--

FRIEND. What, POPE, the Twitnam Bard,
Whom Dennis, Cibber, Tibbald push'd so hard!
POPE of the Dunciad! POPE who dar'd to woo,
And then to libel, Wortley-Montagu!
POPE of the Ham-walks story--

P. Scandals all!
Scandals that now I care not to recall.
Surely a little, in two hundred Years,
One may neglect Contemporary Sneers:--
Surely Allowance for the Man may make
That had all Grub-street yelping in his Wake!
And who (I ask you) has been never Mean,
When urged by Envy, Anger or the Spleen?
No: I prefer to look on POPE as one
Not rightly happy till his Life was done;
Whose whole Career, romance it as you please,
Was (what he call'd it) but a "long Disease:"
Think of his ...

I go to concert, party, ball,
What profit is in these?
I sit alone against the wall
And strive to look at ease.
The incense that is mine by right
They burn before her shrine;
And that's because I'm seventeen
And She is forty-nine.

I cannot check my girlish blush,
My color comes and goes;
I redden to my finger-tips,
And sometimes to my nose.
But She is white where white should be,
And red where red should shine.
The blush that flies at seventeen
Is fixed at forty-nine.

I wish I had Her constant cheek;
I wish that I could sing
All sorts of funny little songs,
Not quite the proper thing.
I'm very gauche and very shy,
Her jokes aren't in my line;
And, worst of all, I'm seventeen
While She is forty-nine.

The...

[1]

A shepherd, neighbour to the sea,
Lived with his flock contentedly.
His fortune, though but small,
Was safe within his call.
At last some stranded kegs of gold
Him tempted, and his flock he sold,
Turn'd merchant, and the ocean's waves
Bore all his treasure - to its caves.
Brought back to keeping sheep once more,
But not chief shepherd, as before,
When sheep were his that grazed the shore,
He who, as Corydon or Thyrsis,
Might once have shone in pastoral verses,
Bedeck'd with rhyme and metre,
Was nothing now but Peter.
But time and toil redeem'd in full
Those harmless creatures rich in wool;
And as the lulling winds, one day,
The vessels wafted with a gentle motion,
'Want you,' he cried, 'more money, Madam Ocean?
Add...

Oh! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers,
    Where Pleasure lies, carelessly smiling at Fame;
He was born for much more, and in happier hours
    His soul might have burned with a holier flame.
The string, that now languishes loose o'er the lyre,
    Might have bent a proud bow to the warrior's dart;[2]
And the lip, which now breathes but the song of desire,
    Might have poured the full tide of a patriot's heart.

But alas for his country!--her pride is gone by,
    And that spirit is broken, which never would bend;
O'er the ruin her children in secret must sigh,
    For 'tis treason to love her, and death to defend.
Unprized are her sons, till they've learned to betray;
    Undistinguished they live, if they shame not their sires;
And the torc...

Tune - "My love is lost to me."


I.

    O, were I on Parnassus' hill!
    Or had of Helicon my fill;
    That I might catch poetic skill,
        To sing how dear I love thee.
    But Nith maun be my Muse's well;
    My Muse maun be thy bonnie sel':
    On Corsincon I'll glow'r and spell,
        And write how dear I love thee.

II.

    Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay!
    For a' the lee-lang simmer's day
    I coudna sing, I coudna say,
        How much, how dear, I love thee.
    I see thee dancing o'er the green,
    Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean,
    Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een,
        By heaven and earth I love thee!

III.

    By night, by day, a-field, at hame,

They are but servants, say the words of scorning,
    As though they meant to say, we're finer clay,
Yet, all the universe holds solemn warning,
    Against this pride in creatures of a day

In fashion's last new folly, flaunting slowly,
    With white plumes tossing on the Sabbath air
They pass with scornful words a sister lowly.
    Do scornful lips know anything of prayer?

Alas! poor human nature's inconsistence,
    Up to God's house we go, that we be fed;
And there, as beggars begging for assistance,
    Say "Give us, Lord, this day our daily bread."

Without a price, the priceless blessings buying
    Which are laid up for us, with Christ in God;
To Him we come as little children crying,
    That He may guide us by His staff and rod,

My simple story is of those times ere the magic power of steam
First whirled the traveller o'er the plains with the swiftness of a dream,
Reducing to a few days' time the journey of many a week,
That fell of old to the miner's lot ere he "sighted" tall Pikes Peak.

'Neath liquid sunshine filling the air, 'mid masses of wild flowers gay,
A prairie waggon followed the track that led o'er the plains away;
And most of those 'neath its canvas roof were of lawless type and rude -
Miners, broad-chested and strongly built, a reckless, gold-seeking brood.

Yet two of the number surely seemed most strangely out of place,
A girl with fragile, graceful form, shy look, and beauteous face,
One who had wrought out the old, old tale, left her home and friends for aye,
Braved family frowns a...

    1.

    I am one of the wind's stories,
    I am a fancy of the rain, -
    A memory of the high noon's glories,
    The hint the sunset had of pain.

    2.

    They dreamed me as they dreamed all other;
    Hawthorn and I, I and the grass,
    With sister shade and phantom brother
    Across their slumber glide and pass.

    3.

    Twilight is in my blood, my being
    Mingles with trees and ferns and stones;
    Thunder and stars my lips are freeing,
    And there is sea-rack in my bones.

    4.

    Those that have dreamed me shall out-wake me,
    But I go hence with flowers and weeds;
    I am no more to those who make me
    Than other drifting fruit and seeds.

    5.

    An...

What being in rank-old nature should earlier have that breath been
That hére pérsonal tells off these heart-song powerful peals? -
A bush-browed, beetle-brówed bíllow is it?
With a soúth-wésterly wínd blústering, with a tide rolls reels
Of crumbling, fore-foundering, thundering all-surfy seas in; seen
Únderneath, their glassy barrel, of a fairy green.

Or a jaunting vaunting vaulting assaulting trumpet telling

    The North Star whispers:    "You are one
    Of those whose course no chance can change.
    You blunder, but are not undone,
    Your spirit-task is fixed and strange.

    "When here you walk, a bloodless shade,
    A singer all men else forget.
    Your chants of hammer, forge and spade
    Will move the prairie-village yet.

    "That young, stiff-necked, reviling town
    Beholds your fancies on her walls,
    And paints them out or tears them down,
    Or bars them from her feasting-halls.

    "Yet shall the fragments still remain;
    Yet shall remain some watch-tower strong
    That ivy-vines will not disdain,
    Haunted and trembling with your song.

    "Your flambeau in the dusk shall burn,
    Flame high in storms, fl...

Lift up thy torch, O Year, and let us see
        What Destiny
Hath made thee heir to at nativity!

Doubt, some call Faith; and ancient Wrong and Might,
        Whom some name Right;
And Darkness, that the purblind world calls Light.

Despair, with Hope's brave form; and Hate, who goes
        In Friendship's clothes;
And Happiness, the mask of many woes.

Neglect, whom Merit serves; Lust, to whom, see,
        Love bends the knee;
And Selfishness, who preacheth charity.

Vice, in whose dungeon Virtue lies in chains;
        And Cares and Pains,
That on the throne of Pleasure hold their reigns.

Corruption, known as Honesty; and Fame
        That's but a name;
And Innocence, the outward guise of Shame.

And Folly, men ca...

Come, said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.

In this broad Earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed Perfection.

By every life a share, or more or less,
None born but it is born conceal'd or unconceal'd, the seed is waiting.

Lo! keen-eyed, towering Science!
As from tall peaks the Modern overlooking,
Successive, absolute fiats issuing.

Yet again, lo! the Soul above all science;
For it, has History gather'd like a husk around the globe;
For it, the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.

In spiral roads, by long detours,
(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,)
For it, the partial to the permanent flowing,
...

I Heard a Spirit singing as, beyond the morning winging, Its radiant form went swinging like a star:
In its song prophetic voices mixed their sounds with trumpet-noises, As when, loud, the World rejoices after war.
And it said:

I.

Hear me!
Above the roar of cities,
The clamor and conflict of trade,
The frenzy and fury of commercialism,
Is heard my voice, chanting, intoning.
Down the long corridors of time it comes,
Bearing my message, bidding the soul of man arise
To the realization of his dream.
Now and then discords seem to intrude,
And tones that are false and feeble
Beginnings of the perfect chord
From which is evolved the ideal, the unattainable.
Hear me!
Ever and ever,
Above the tumult of the years,
The blatant cacophonies of w...

Thou askest, fair daughter of the
isles! whose memory is preserved
in these tombs? The memory of Ronnan
the bold, and Connan the chief of
men; and of her, the fairest of maids,
Rivine the lovely and the good. The
wing of time is laden with care. Every
moment hath woes of its own. Why
seek we our grief from afar? or give our
tears to those of other times? But thou
commanded, and I obey, O fair daughter
of the isles!

Conar was mighty in war. Caul
was the friend of strangers. His gates
were open to all; midnight darkened
not on his barred door. Both lived upon
the sons of the mountains. Their bow
was the support of the poor.

Connan was the image of Conar's
soul. Caul was renewed in Ronnan his
son. Rivine the daughter of Conar was

The wind is rising and the leaves are swept
Wildly before it, hundreds on hundreds fall
Huddling beneath the trees. With brag and brawl
Of storm the day is grown a tavern, kept
Of madness, where, with mantles torn and ripped
Of flying leaves that beat above it all,
The wild winds fight; and, like some half-spent ball,
The acorn stings the rout; and, silver-stripped,
The milkweed-pod winks an exhausted lamp:
Now, in his coat of tatters dark that streams,
The ragged rain sweeps stormily this way,
With all his clamorous followers clouds that camp
Around the hearthstone of the west where gleams
The last chill flame of the expiring day.

A morning crowns the Western hill,
A day begins to reign,
A sun awakes o’er distant seas
Shall never sleep again.
The world is growing old,
And men are waxing wise;
A mist has cleared a something falls
Like scales from off their eyes.

Too long the “Dark of Ignorance”
Has brooded on their way;
Too long Oppression ’s stood before,
Excluding light of day.
But now they’ve found the track
And now they’ve seen the dawn,
A “beacon lamp” is pointing on,
Where stronger glows the morn.

Since Adam lived, the mighty ones
Have ever ruled the weak;
Since Noah’s flood, the fettered slave
Has seldom dared to speak.
’Tis time a voice was heard,
’Tis time a voice was spoken
So in the chain of tyranny
A link or two be broken.
<...

1 Though Artemisia talks, by fits,
Of councils, classics, fathers, wits;
Reads Malebranche, Boyle, and Locke:
Yet in some things methinks she fails--
'Twere well if she would pare her nails,
And wear a cleaner smock.

2 Haughty and huge as High-Dutch bride,
Such nastiness, and so much pride
Are oddly join'd by fate:
On her large squab you find her spread,
Like a fat corpse upon a bed,
That lies and stinks in state.

3 She wears no colours (sign of grace)
On any part except her face;
All white and black beside:
Dauntless her look, her gesture proud,
Her voice theatrically loud,
And masculine her stride.

4 So have I seen, in black and white
A prating thing, a magpie height,
Majestically stalk;
A stately, worthless animal,...

    On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam,
    And the home of the wolf shall be my home,
    And a bunch of bones on the boundless snows
    The end of my trail . . . who knows, who knows!

    I'm dreaming to-night in the fire-glow, alone in my study tower,
    My books battalioned around me, my Kipling flat on my knee;
    But I'm not in the mood for reading, I haven't moved for an hour;
    Body and brain I'm weary, weary the heart of me;
    Weary of crushing a longing it's little I understand,
    For I thought that my trail was ended, I thought I had earned my rest;
    But oh, it's stronger than life is, the call of the hearthless land!
    And I turn to the North in my trouble, as a child to the mother-breast.

    Here in my den it's quiet; the sea-...