Courage

This was the tale Sher Afzul told to me,
While the spent camels bubbled on their knees,
And ruddy camp-fires twinkled through the gloom
Sweet with the fragrance from the Sinjib trees.

I had a friend who lay, condemned to death
In gaol for murder, wholly innocent,
Yet caught in webs of luckless circumstance; -
Thou know'st how lies, of good and ill intent,

Cluster like flies around a justice-court,
Wheel within wheel, revolving screw on screw; -
But from his prison he escaped and fled,
Keeping his liberty a night or two

Among the lonely hills, where, shackled still,
He braved a village, seeking for a file
To loose his irons; alas! he lost his life
Through the base sweetness of a woman's smile.

Lovely she was, and young, who gave the yout...

Unfading Hope! when life's last embers burn
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return,
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour!
Oh! then thy kingdom comes, Immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye!
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life's eternal day
Then, then, the triumph and the trance begin,
And all the phoenix-spirit burns within!

Oh, deep enchanting prelude to repose,
The dawn of bliss, the twilight of our woes!
Yet half I hear the parting spirit sigh,
It is a dread and awful thing to die!
Mysterious worlds, untravell'd by the sun!
Where Time's far-wandering tide has never run,
From your unfathom'd shades, and viewless spheres,
A warning c...

I
Over the ball of it,
Peering and prying,
How I see all of it,
Life there, outlying!
Roughness and smoothness,
Shine and defilement,
Grace and uncouthness:
One reconcilement.

Orbed as appointed,
Sister with brother
Joins, ne’er disjointed
One from the other.
All’s lend-and-borrow;
Good, see, wants evil,
Joy demands sorrow,
Angel weds devil!

“Which things must, why be?”
Vain our endeavor!
So shall things aye be
As they were ever.
“Such things should so be!”
Sage our desistence!
Rough-smooth let globe be,
Mixed, man’s existence!

Man, wise and foolish,
Lover and scorner,
Docile and mulish,
Keep each his corner!
Honey yet gall of it!
There’s the life lying,
And I see all ...

They sat in silent watchfulness
The sacred cypress-tree about,
And, from beneath old wrinkled brows,
Their failing eyes looked out.

Gray Age and Sickness waiting there
Through weary night and lingering day,
Grim as the idols at their side,
And motionless as they.

Unheeded in the boughs above
The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet;
Unseen of them the island flowers
Bloomed brightly at their feet.

O'er them the tropic night-storm swept,
The thunder crashed on rock and hill;
The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed,
Yet there they waited still!

What was the world without to them?
The Moslem's sunset-call, the dance
Of Ceylon's maids, the passing gleam
Of battle-flag and lance?

They waited for that falling leaf
O...

As a pale phantom with a lamp
    Ascends some ruin's haunted stair,
So glides the moon along the damp
    Mysterious chambers of the air.

Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,
    As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
    And at the windows seen again.

Until at last, serene and proud
    In all the splendor of her light,
She walks the terraces of cloud,
    Supreme as Empress of the Night.

I look, but recognize no more
    Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door
    Is an enchanted avenue.

All things are changed.    One mass of shade,
    The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonnade
    I walk as in a foreign town.

The very ground b...

She will not sleep, for fear of dreams,
But, rising, quits her restless bed,
And walks where some beclouded beams
Of moonlight through the hall are shed.

Obedient to the goad of grief,
Her steps, now fast, now lingering slow,
In varying motion seek relief
From the Eumenides of woe.

Wringing her hands, at intervals,
But long as mute as phantom dim,
She glides along the dusky walls,
Under the black oak rafters grim.

The close air of the grated tower
Stifles a heart that scarce can beat,
And, though so late and lone the hour,
Forth pass her wandering, faltering feet;

And on the pavement spread before
The long front of the mansion grey,
Her steps imprint the night-frost hoar,
Which pale on grass and granite lay.

No...

The shadow of Dawn;
Stillness and stars and over-mastering dreams
Of Life and Death and Sleep;
Heard over gleaming flats, the old, unchanging sound
Of the old, unchanging Sea.

My soul and yours -
O, hand in hand let us fare forth, two ghosts,
Into the ghostliness,
The infinite and abounding solitudes,
Beyond - O, beyond! - beyond . . .

Here in the porch
Upon the multitudinous silences
Of the kingdoms of the grave,
We twain are you and I - two ghosts Omnipotence
Can touch no more . . . no more!

WILLIAM.
When I meet Peggy in my morning walk,
She first salutes the morn, then stays to talk:
The biggest secret she will not refuse,
But freely tells me all the village-news;
And pleas'd am I, can I but haply force
Some new-made tale to lengthen the discourse,
For--O so pleasing is her company,
That hours, like minutes, in her presence fly!
I'm happy then, nor can her absence e'er
Raise in my heart the least distrust or fear.

ROBIN.
When Mary meets me I find nought to say,
She hangs her head, I turn another way;
Sometimes (but never till the maid's gone by)
"Good morning!" faulters, weaken'd by a sigh;
Confounded I remain, but yet delight
To look back on her till she's out of sight.
Then, then's the time that absence does torment:
I jeer...

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]

[More Ways Than One.]

        I was present, one day
            Where both layman and priest
        Worshipped God in a way
            That was startling, at least:
        Over thirty in place
            On the stage, in a row,
        As is often the case
            At a minstrelsy show;
        In a uniform clad
            Was each one of them seen,
        And a banjo they had,
            And a loud tambourine.
        And they sung and they shouted
            Their spasmodic joys,
        Just as if they ne'er doubted
            That God loved a noise.

        And their phrases, though all
            Not deficient in points,
        A grammarian would call
      ...

POET.

Enchanting spirit! at thy votive shrine
I lowly bend one simple wreath to twine;
O come from thy ideal world and fling
Thy airy fingers o'er my rugged string;
Sweep the dark chords of thought and give to earth
The wild sweet song that tells thy heavenly birth--


FANCY.

Happiness, when from earth she fled,
    I passed on her heaven-ward flight,--
"Take this wreath," the spirit said,
    "And bathe it in floods of light;
To the sons of sorrow this token give,
And bid them follow my steps and live!"

I took the wreath from her radiant hand,
    Each flower was a silver star;
I turned this dark earth to a fairy land,
    When I hither drove my car;
But I wove the wreath round my tresses bright,
And man only saw its...

So light we were, so right we were, so fair faith shone,
And the way was laid so certainly, that, when I'd gone,
What dumb thing looked up at you? Was it something heard,
Or a sudden cry, that meekly and without a word
You broke the faith, and strangely, weakly, slipped apart.
You gave in, you, the proud of heart, unbowed of heart!
Was this, friend, the end of all that we could do?
And have you found the best for you, the rest for you?
Did you learn so suddenly (and I not by!)
Some whispered story, that stole the glory from the sky,
And ended all the splendid dream, and made you go
So dully from the fight we know, the light we know?

O faithless! the faith remains, and I must pass
Gay down the way, and on alone. Under the grass
You wait; the breeze moves in the tre...

The dusky warriors stood in groups around the funeral pyre,
The scowl upon their knotted brows betrayed their vengeful ire.
It needed not the cords, the stake, the rites so stern and rude,
To tell it was to be a scene of cruelty and blood.

Yet 'mid those guilt-stained men could any vile enough be found
To harm the victim who there stood, in helpless thraldom bound?
A girl of slight and fragile form, of gentle child-like grace,
Though woman's earnest thoughtfulness beamed in that sweet young face.

Oh! lovely was that winsome child of a dark and rugged line,
And e'en mid Europe's daughters fair, surpassing might she shine:
For ne'er had coral lips been wreathed by brighter, sunnier smile,
Or dark eyes beamed with lustrous light, more full of winsome wile.

With glo...

We set no right above hers,
No earthly light nor star,
She hath had many lovers,
But not as lovers are:
They all were gallant fellows
And died all deaths for her,
And never one was jealous
But comrades true they were.

Oh! each one is a brother,
Though all the lands they claim,
For her or for each other
They’ve died all deaths the same
Young, handsome, old and ugly,
Free, married or divorced,
Where springtime bard or Thug lie
Her lover’s feet have crossed.

’Mid buttercups and daisies
With fair girls by their side,
Young poets sang her praises
While day in starlight died.
In smoke and fire and dust, and
With red eyes maniac like,
Those same young poets thrust and,
Wrenched out the reeking pike!

She is as ...

‘What have I earned for all that work,’ I said,
‘For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defamed,
The reputation of his lifetime lost
Between the night and morning. I might have lived,
And you know well how great the longing has been,
Where every day my footfall should have lit
In the green shadow of Ferrara wall;
Or climbed among the images of the past—
The unperturbed and courtly images—
Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino
To where the duchess and her people talked
The stately midnight through until they stood
In their great window looking at the dawn;
I might have had no friend that could not mix
Courtesy and passion into one like those
That saw the wicks grow...

        An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers,
        Where every beam that broke the leaden sky
        Lit other hills with fairer ways than ours;
        Some clustered graves where half our memories lie;
        And one grim Shadow creeping ever nigh:
            And this was Life.

        Wherein we did another's burden seek,
        The tired feet we helped upon the road,
        The hand we gave the weary and the weak,
        The miles we lightened one another's load,
        When, faint to falling, onward yet we strode:
            This too was Life.

        Till, at the upland, as we turned to go
        Amid fair meadows, dusky in the night,
        The mists fell back upon the road below;
        Broke on our tired eyes the western...

Through fields of ash, burnt, without verdure,
where I was complaining one day to Nature,
and slowly sharpened the knife of my thought,
as I wandered aimlessly, against my heart,
I saw descend, at noon, on my brow,
a storm-filled and a sinister cloud,
holding a vicious demonic horde,
resembling cruel, and curious dwarfs.
They gazing at me, considering me, as cool
as passers-by admiring a fool,
I heard them laughing and whispering in synch,
exchanging many a nudge and a wink:

‘ Let’s contemplate this caricature,
this Hamlet’s shadow, echoing his posture,
his indecisive looks, and wild hair.
It’s a shame to see that epicure there,
that pauper, that actor on holiday, that droll
fellow, because he can play a fine role,
trying to interest with his t...

This is the Chapel: here, my son,
    Your father thought the thoughts of youth,
And heard the words that one by one
    The touch of Life has turned to truth.
Here in a day that is not far,
    You too may speak with noble ghosts
Of manhood and the vows of war
    You made before the Lord of Hosts.

To set the cause above renown,
    To love the game beyond the prize,
To honour, while you strike him down,
    The foe that comes with fearless eyes;
To count the life of battle good,
    And dear the land that gave you birth,
And dearer yet the brotherhood
    That binds the brave of all the earth---

My son, the oath is yours: the end
    Is His, Who built the world of strife,
Who gave His children Pain for friend,
    And Death for sur...

Long through the night hours sorrow was my guest
And would not let my fainting body rest,
Till just ere dawn from out its slow dominions
Flew sleep to wrap me in its dear dusk pinions.
And then it was my mother did appear
Before mine eyes in vision doubly dear;
For in her arms she held my darling one,
My Ursula, just as she used to run
To me at dawn to say her morning prayer,
In her white nightgown, with her curling hair
Framing her rosy face, her eyes about
To laugh, like flowers only halfway out.
        "Art thou still sorrowing, my son?" Thus spoke
My mother. Sighing bitterly, I woke,
Or seemed to wake, and heard her say once more:
        "It is thy weeping brings me to this shore:
Thy lamentations, long uncomforted,
Have reached the hidden chambers ...