Courage

Rise! they 'have' risen: of brave Aneurin ask
How they have scourged old foes, perfidious friends:
The Spirit of Caractacus descends
Upon the Patriots, animates their task;
Amazement runs before the towering casque
Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field
The virgin sculptured on his Christian shield:
Stretched in the sunny light of victory bask
The Host that followed Urien as he strode
O'er heaps of slain; from Cambrian wood and moss
Druids descend, auxiliars of the Cross;
Bards, nursed on blue Plinlimmon's still abode,
Rush on the fight, to harps preferring swords,
And everlasting deeds to burning words!

Owls: they whinney down the night,
    Bats go zigzag by.
Ambushed in shadow out of sight
    The outlaws lie.

Old gods, shrunk to shadows, there
    In the wet woods they lurk,
Greedy of human stuff to snare
    In webs of murk.

Look up, else your eye must drown
    In a moving sea of black
Between the tree-tops, upside down
    Goes the sky-track.

Look up, else your feet will stray
    Towards that dim ambuscade,
Where spider-like they catch their prey
    In nets of shade.

For though creeds whirl away in dust,
    Faith fails and men forget,
These aged gods of fright and lust
    Cling to life yet.

Old gods almost dead, malign,
    Starved of their ancient dues,
Incense and fruit, fire, blood and w...

Tune - "Neil Gow's Lamentations for Abercairny."


I.

    Where, braving angry winter's storms,
        The lofty Ochels rise,
    Far in their shade my Peggy's charms
        First blest my wondering eyes;
    As one who by some savage stream,
        A lonely gem surveys,
    Astonish'd, doubly marks its beam,
        With art's most polish'd blaze.

II.

    Blest be the wild, sequester'd shade,
        And blest the day and hour,
    Where Peggy's charms I first survey'd,
        When first I felt their power!
    The tyrant Death, with grim control,
        May seize my fleeting breath;
    But tearing Peggy from my soul
        Must be a stronger death.

I.

My food is but spare,
And humble my cot,
Yet Jesus dwells there
And blesses my lot:
Though thinly I'm clad,
And tempests oft roll,
He's raiment, and bread,
And drink to my soul.

II.

His presence is wealth,
His grace is a treasure,
His promise is health
And joy out of measure.
His word is my rest,
His spirit my guide:
In Him I am blest
Whatever betide.

III.

Since Jesus is mine,
Adieu to all sorrow;
I ne'er shall repine,
Nor think of to-morrow:
The lily so fair,
And raven so black,
He nurses with care,
Then how shall I lack?

IV.

Each promise is sure,
That shines in His word,
And tells me, though poor,
I'm rich in my Lord.
Hence!    Sorrow ...

        A Poem Dedicated to All Crusaders against the International and Interstate Traffic in Young Girls



    Galahad... soldier that perished... ages ago,
    Our hearts are breaking with shame, our tears overflow.
    Galahad... knight who perished... awaken again,
    Teach us to fight for immaculate ways among men.
    Soldiers fantastic, we pray to the star of the sea,
    We pray to the mother of God that the bound may be free.
    Rose-crowned lady from heaven, give us thy grace,
    Help us the intricate, desperate battle to face
    Till the leer of the trader is seen nevermore in the land,
    Till we bring every maid of the age to one sheltering hand.
    Ah, they are priceless, the pale and the ivory and red!
    Breathless we gaze on the curls of ea...

I.

There's a tear in your eye, little Sybil,
Gathering large and slow;
Oh, Sybil, sweet little Sybil,
What are you thinking of now?

Push back the velvet curtains
That darken the lonely room,
For shadows peer out of the crimson depths,
And the statues gleam white in the gloom.

How the cannons' thunder rolls along,
And shakes the lattice and wall,
Oh, Sybil, sweet little Sybil,
What if your father should fall?

The smoky clouds sweep up from the field
And darken the earth and sea,
"God save him! God save him!"
Wherever he may be.


II.

Oh, pretty dark-eyed bird of the South,
With your face so mournful and white
There is many a little Northern girl
That is breathing that prayer to-night.

T...

On a mound an Arab lay,
And sung his sweet regrets
And told his amulets:
The summer bird
His sorrow heard,
And, when he heaved a sigh profound,
The sympathetic swallow swept the ground.

'If it be, as they said, she was not fair,
Beauty's not beautiful to me,
But sceptred genius, aye inorbed,
Culminating in her sphere.
This Hermione absorbed
The lustre of the land and ocean,
Hills and islands, cloud and tree,
In her form and motion.

'I ask no bauble miniature,
Nor ringlets dead
Shorn from her comely head,
Now that morning not disdains
Mountains and the misty plains
Her colossal portraiture;
They her heralds be,
Steeped in her quality,
And singers of her fame
Who is their Muse and dame.

'Higher, dear...

There was a time in Europe long ago
When no man died for freedom anywhere,
But England's lion leaping from its lair
Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so
While England could a great Republic show.
Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care
Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair
The Pontiff in his painted portico
Trembled before our stern ambassadors.
How comes it then that from such high estate
We have thus fallen, save that Luxury
With barren merchandise piles up the gate
Where noble thoughts and deeds should enter by:
Else might we still be Milton's heritors.

Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum
recte facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non possim
(Seneca, Letters 130.10)



Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou, who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work, and know it not:
Oh! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

Serene wil...

'Twas dead of the night when I sate in my dwelling,
One glimmering lamp was expiring and low, -
Around the dark tide of the tempest was swelling,
Along the wild mountains night-ravens were yelling,
They bodingly presaged destruction and woe!

'Twas then that I started, the wild storm was howling,
Nought was seen, save the lightning that danced on the sky,
Above me the crash of the thunder was rolling,
And low, chilling murmurs the blast wafted by. -

My heart sank within me, unheeded the jar
Of the battling clouds on the mountain-tops broke,
Unheeded the thunder-peal crashed in mine ear,
This heart hard as iron was stranger to fear,
But conscience in low noiseless whispering spoke.
'Twas then that her form on the whirlwind uprearing,
The dark ghost of the...

From depth to height, from height to loftier height,
The climber sets his foot and sets his face,
Tracks lingering sunbeams to their halting-place,
And counts the last pulsations of the light.
Strenuous thro' day and unsurprised by night
He runs a race with Time, and wins the race,
Emptied and stripped of all save only Grace,
Will, Love, - a threefold panoply of might.
Darkness descends for light he toiled to seek;
He stumbles on the darkened mountain-head,
Left breathless in the unbreathable thin air,
Made freeman of the living and the dead, -
He wots not he has topped the topmost peak,
But the returning sun will find him there.

Here there is balm for every tender heart
Wounded by life;
Rest for each one who bore a valiant part
Crushed in the strife.

I suffered there and held a losing fight
Even to the grave;
And now I know that it was very right
To suffer and be brave.

There are some souls
Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals
That adverse Fate controls.

While others win
With little labor through life's dust and din,
And lord-like enter in

Immortal gates;
And, of Success the high-born intimates,
Inherit Fame's estates. . .

Why is't the lot
Of merit oft to struggle and yet not
Attain? to toil for what?

Simply to know
The disappointment, the despair and woe
Of effort here below?

Ambitious still to reach
Those lofty peaks, which men aspiring preach,
For which their souls beseech:

Those heights that swell
Remote, removed, and unattainable,
Pinnacle on pinnacle:

Still yearning to attain
Their far repose, above life's stress and strain,
But all in ...

Where shall we write your names, ye brave!
    Where build for you a monument,
Who lie in many a sylvan grave,
    Stretched half across the continent!
Young, bright and brave, the very flower
    And choice of all we had to give,
    With you what glory ceased to live,--
    Or lives again in hearts of men.
An inspiration and a power!

For when one sunny day in June,
    A sudden war-cry shook the land,
As if from out clear skies at noon
    Had dropped the lightning's deadly brand--
Ah then, while rang our British cheers,
    And pealed the bugle, rolled the drum,
    We saw the Nation rise like one!
    Swift formed the files,--a thousand miles
Of them, our gallant Volunteers!

Deep clanged the bells, the drums did beat,
    And sti...

As the bright flowers start from their wintry tomb,
I've sprung from the depths of futurity's gloom;
With the glory of Hope on my unshadowed brow,
But a fear at my heart, earth welcomes me now.
I come and bear with me a measureless flow,
Of infinite joy and of infinite woe:
The banquet's light jest and the penitent prayer,
The sweet laugh of gladness, the wail of despair,
The warm words of welcome, and broken farewell,
The strains of rich music, the funeral knell,
The fair bridal wreath, and the robe for the dead,
O how will they meet in the path I shall tread!
O how will they mingle where'er I pass by,
As sunshine and storm in the rainbow on high!

Yet start not, nor shrink from the race I must run;
I've peace and repose for the heart-stricken one,
And s...

I.
Would it were I had been false, not you!
I that am nothing, not you that are all
I, never the worse for a touch or two
On my speckled hide; not you, the pride
Of the day, my swan, that a first fleck’s fall
On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!

II.
I had dipped in life’s struggle and, out again,
Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see,
When I found my swan and the cure was plain;
The dull turned bright as I caught your white
On my bosom: you saved me saved in vain
If you ruined yourself, and all through me!

III.
Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am,
Who taught you to stoop; you gave me yourself,
And bound your soul by the vows that damn:
Since on better thought you break, as you ought,
Vows words, no angel set down,...

Their eyes met; flashed an instant like swift swords
That leapt unparring to each other's heart,
Jarring convulsion through the inmost chords;
Then fell, for they had fully done their part.

She, in the manner of her folk unveiled,
Might have been veiled for all he saw of her;
Those sudden eyes, from which he reeled and quailed;
The old life dead, no new life yet astir.

His good steed bore him onward slow and proud:
And through the open lattice still she leant;
Pale, still, though whirled in a black rushing cloud,
As if on her fair flowers and dreams intent.

Days passed, and he passed timid, furtive, slow:
Nights came, and he came motionless and mute,
A steadfast sentinel till morning-glow,
Though blank her window, dumb her voice and lute.

When treason first began the strife
That crimsoned sea and shore,
The Nation poured her hoarded life
On Freedom's threshing-floor;
From field and prairie, east and west,
From coast and hill and plain,
The sheaves of ripening manhood pressed
Thick as the bearded grain.

Rich was the harvest; souls as true
As ever battle tried;
But fiercer still the conflict grew,
The floor of death more wide;
Ah, who forgets that dreadful day
Whose blot of grief and shame
Four bitter years scarce wash away
In seas of blood and flame?

Vain, vain the Nation's lofty boasts, -
Vain all her sacrifice!
"Give me a man to lead my hosts,
O God in heaven!" she cries.
While Battle whirls his crushing flail,
And plies his winnowing fan, -
Thick flie...