Courage

The Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said
"Bright is thy veil, O Moon, as thou art bright!"
Forthwith, that little cloud, in ether spread
And penetrated all with tender light,
She cast away, and showed her fulgent head
Uncovered; dazzling the Beholder's sight
As if to vindicate her beauty's right
Her beauty thoughtlessly disparaged.
Meanwhile that veil, removed or thrown aside,
Went floating from her, darkening as it went;
And a huge mass, to bury or to hide,
Approached this glory of the firmament;
Who meekly yields, and is obscured content
With one calm triumph of a modest pride.

I would never waste the hours
Of the time that is mine own,
Writing verses about flowers
For their own sweet sakes alone;
Gushing as a schoolgirl gushes
Over babies at their best,
Or as poets trill of thrushes,
Larks, and starlings and the rest.

I am not a man who praises
Beauty that he cannot see,
But the buttercups and daisies
Bring my childhood back to me;
And before life’s bitter battle,
That breaks lion hearts and kills,
Oh the waratah and wattle
Saw my boyhood on the hills.

It was “Cissy” or Cecilia,
And I loved her very much,
When I wore the white camelia
That will wither at a touch.
Ah, the fairest chapter closes
With lilies white and blue,
When the wild days with the roses
Cast their glamour over you!

Bury him without a word!
    No appeal to death;
Only the call of the bird
    And the blind spring's breath.

Nature slays ten, yet the one
    Reaches but to a part
Of what's to be done, to be sung.
    Keep we a proud heart!

Let us not glose her waste
    With lies and dreams;
Fawn on her wanton haste,
    Say it but seems.

Comrades, with faces unstirred,
    Scorning grief's dole,
Though with him, with him lies interred
    Our heart and soul,

Bury him without a word!
    No appeal to death;
Only the call of the bird
    And the blind spring's breath.

Who ever saw a noble sight,
That never view'd a brave sea-fight!
Hang up your bloody colours in the air,
Up with your fights, and your nettings prepare;
Your merry mates cheer, with a lusty bold spright.
Now each man his brindace, and then to the fight.
St George, St George, we cry,
The shouting Turks reply.
Oh, now it begins, and the gun-room grows hot,
Ply it with culverin and with small shot;

Hark, does it not thunder? no, 'tis the guns' roar,
The neighbouring billows are turn'd into gore;
Now each man must resolve to die,
For here the coward cannot fly.
Drums and trumpets toll the knell,
And culverins the passing bell.
Now, now they grapple, and now board amain;
Blow up the hatches, they're off all again:
Give them a broadside, the dice run...

When I tell a tale of virtue and of injured innocence,
Then my publishers and lawyers are the densest of the dense:
With the blank face of an image and the nod of keep-it-dark
And a wink of mighty meaning at their confidential clerk.

(When, Oh! tell me when shall poets cease to be misunderstood?
When, Oh! When? shall people reckon rhymers can be any good?
Do their work and pay their debts and drink their pint of beer, and then,
Look in woman’s eyes and leave them, just like ordinary men?)

“Is there literary friendship ’twix the sexes? don’t you think?”
And they wink their idiotic and exasperating wink.
“Can’t we kiss a clever woman without wanting any more?”
And their clock-work nod is only more decided than before.

But if I should hint that there’s a little wom...

(From The Gaelic)

The Hern at early morning cries,
Where at Sleve-gail the meadow lies.

Say, Dúin's son, whom I love well,
Canst thou thereof the reason tell?

O! Gormla's daughter, thou whose sire
Was named from tireless steeds of fire;

Thou evil-working one! thy feet
Tread treacherous ways of ice and sleet.

Grinie! of lovelier hue than Spring
To flower, or bloom on bough can bring,

More fleeting far your love that flies
Like the cold clouds of dawning skies.

Because of thine ill-chosen part
My fortune's firm set rivets start.

Yes, thine the deed, brought low to pain,
My grievous woe thine only gain.

From palaces of kings beguiled,
For ever outcast and exiled:

Like night-owl mourning, a...

O sweet To-morrow! -
After to-day
There will away
This sense of sorrow.
Then let us borrow
Hope, for a gleaming
Soon will be streaming,
Dimmed by no gray -
No gray!

While the winds wing us
Sighs from The Gone,
Nearer to dawn
Minute-beats bring us;
When there will sing us
Larks of a glory
Waiting our story
Further anon -
Anon!

Doff the black token,
Don the red shoon,
Right and retune
Viol-strings broken;
Null the words spoken
In speeches of rueing,
The night cloud is hueing,
To-morrow shines soon -
Shines soon!

There are moments we can look to, we can cherish in the past,
As the fleeting days that numbered them are dwindling to their last,
Like the roses in the autumn that are severed from their stem,
Like the dew-bespangled petals when we sit and sigh for them.

There were sweetnesses unrivalled in those halcyon days of truth,
Yet fairy hopes are budding in the sunset glow of youth,
When like the cloudlets o'er the far horizon of the sea,
Each fringed with sheeny splendour, are the days of infancy.

Yet there are days and moments for enjoyment on before,
Tho' the golden skies of youth shall never smile upon us more,
When the brow of early womanhood looks forth to pleasures new,
And sweeter, lovelier visions are unfolding to the view.

O take the gift and when though look...

Wilt thou not the lambkins guard?
Oh, how soft and meek they look,
Feeding on the grassy sward,
Sporting round the silvery brook!
"Mother, mother, let me go
On yon heights to chase the roe!"

Wilt thou not the flock compel
With the horn's inspiring notes?
Sweet the echo of yon bell,
As across the wood it floats!
"Mother, mother, let me go
On yon heights to hunt the roe!"

Wilt thou not the flow'rets bind,
Smiling gently in their bed?
For no garden thou wilt find
On yon heights so wild and dread.
"Leave the flow'rets, let them blow!
Mother, mother, let me go!"

And the youth then sought the chase,
Onward pressed with headlong speed
To the mountain's gloomiest place,
Naught his progress could impede;
And before him, l...

I.
That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,
And the blue eye
Dear and dewy,
And that infantine fresh air of hers!

II.
To think men cannot take you, Sweet,
And enfold you,
Ay, and hold you,
And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!

III.
You like us for a glance, you know
For a word’s sake
Or a sword’s sake,
All’s the same, whate’er the chance, you know.

IV.
And in turn we make you ours, we say
You and youth too,
Eyes and mouth too,
All the face composed of flowers, we say.

V.
All’s our own, to make the most of, Sweet
Sing and say for,
Watch and pray for,
Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!

VI.
But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,
Though we prayed you,
Paid you, brayed ...

The waves were weary, and they went to sleep;
    The winds were hushed;
    The starlight flushed
The furrowed face of all the mighty deep.

The billows yester eve so dark and wild,
    Wore strangely now
    A calm upon their brow,
Like that which rests upon a cradled child.

The sky was bright, and every single star,
    With gleaming face,
    Was in its place,
And looked upon the sea -- so fair and far.

And all was still -- still as a temple dim,
    When low and faint,
    As murmurs plaint,
Dies the last note of the Vesper hymn.

A bark slept on the sea, and in the bark
    Slept Mary's Son --
    The only One
Whose face is light! where all, all else, is dark.

His brow was heavenward turned, His face was fa...

I was sitting with my microscope, upon my parlor rug,
With a very heavy quarto and a very lively bug;
The true bug had been organized with only two antennae,
But the humbug in the copperplate would have them twice as many.

And I thought, like Dr. Faustus, of the emptiness of art,
How we take a fragment for the whole, and call the whole a part,
When I heard a heavy footstep that was loud enough for two,
And a man of forty entered, exclaiming, "How d' ye do?"

He was not a ghost, my visitor, but solid flesh and bone;
He wore a Palo Alto hat, his weight was twenty stone;
(It's odd how hats expand their brims as riper years invade,
As if when life had reached its noon it wanted them for shade!)

I lost my focus, - dropped my book, - the bug, who was a flea,
At on...

The bear puts both arms around the tree above her
And draws it down as if it were a lover
And its choke cherries lips to kiss good-bye,
Then lets it snap back upright in the sky.
Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall
(She's making her cross-country in the fall).
Her great weight creaks the barbed-wire in its staples
As she flings over and off down through the maples,
Leaving on one wire moth a lock of hair.
Such is the uncaged progress of the bear.
The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.
Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage
That all day fights a nervous inward rage
His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.
He paces back and forth and never rests
The me-nail click and shuffle of his feet,
The telesco...

A Long-Vacation Pastoral


V

 Putavi
Stultus ego huic nostræ similem.

So in the cottage with Adam the pupils five together
Duly remained, and read, and looked no more for Philip,
Philip at Balloch shooting and dancing with Lady Maria.
Breakfast at eight, and now, for brief September daylight,
Luncheon at two, and dinner at seven, or even later,
Five full hours between for the loch and the glen and the mountain,
So in the joy of their life and glory of shooting-jackets,
So they read and roamed, the pupils five with Adam.
What if autumnal shower came frequent and chill from the westward,
What if on browner sward with yellow leaves besprinkled,
Gemming the crispy blade, the delicate gossamer gemming,
Frequent and thick lay at morning the c...

OCCASIONED BY "APOLLO TO THE DEAN" 1720


Parnassus, February the twenty-seventh.
The poets assembled here on the eleventh,
Convened by Apollo, who gave them to know
He'd have a vicegerent in his empire below;
But declared that no bard should this honour inherit,
Till the rest had agreed he surpass'd them in merit:
Now this, you'll allow, was a difficult case,
For each bard believed he'd a right to the place;
So, finding the assembly grow warm in debate,
He put them in mind of his Phaethon's fate:
'Twas urged to no purpose; disputes higher rose,
Scarce Phoebus himself could their quarrels compose;
Till at length he determined that every bard
Should (each in his turn) be patiently heard.
    First, one who believed he excell'd in translation,[1]
Found...

        Ever restless, ever toiling,
    Fretting fiercely on its narrow bounds,
    Still filling heaven and earth with mournful sounds,
Old ocean, sullen from its rocks recoiling,
    Rearing wild waves foam-crested to the sky,
    Lashes again the beaches angrily:

        Slowly victor-like advancing,
    Marching roughly o'er the conquer'd land,
    Clean sweeping olden limits from the strand,
In proud derision o'er the spoil'd Earth glancing,
    Where 'neath its ruthless tide on hill or plain,
    No flower or shady leaf shall bud again.

        Slowly thus the ocean creeping,
    Creeping coldly o'er the world of old,
    Stole many an Eden from the Age of Gold,
And gazing now we see blank billows sweeping,
    Long cheerless wavings of the ...

I.

There was a naughty boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quiet be
He took
In his knapsack
A book
Full of vowels
And a shirt
With some towels,
A slight cap
For night cap,
A hair brush,
Comb ditto,
New stockings
For old ones
Would split O!
This knapsack
Tight at's back
He rivetted close
And followed his nose
To the north,
To the north,
And follow'd his nose
To the north.

II.

There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
For nothing would he do
But scribble poetry
He took
An ink stand
In his hand
And a pen
Big as ten
In the other,
And away
In a pother
He ran
To the mountains
And fountai...

        Moore found the ballads of Green Isle
        Were oft obscured beneath the soil,
        As miner digging in a mine
        Finds rubbish 'mong the gold so fine,
        So Moore placed dross in the waste basket
        And enshrined jewels in casket,
        Where all may view each charming gem
        In Ireland's grand old diadem.

        In eastern lands his fame prevails
        In wondrous oriental tales,
        So full of gems his Lala Rookh,
        Hindoos and Brahmins read his book,
        And dark eyed Persian girls admire
        The beauty of his magic lyre,
        Glowing like pearls of great price
        Those distant gleams of paradise.

        He sang of Bryan Borohm's glory,
        Renowned in ancient Irish stor...