Courage

(March, 1862.)


Your honest heart of duty, Worden,
So helped you that in fame you dwell;
You bore the first iron battle's burden
Sealed as in a diving-bell.
Alcides, groping into haunted hell
To bring forth King Admetus' bride,
Braved naught more vaguely direful and untried.
What poet shall uplift his charm,
Bold Sailor, to your height of daring,
And interblend therewith the calm,
And build a goodly style upon your bearing.

Escaped the gale of outer ocean -
Cribbed in a craft which like a log
Was washed by every billow's motion -
By night you heard of Og
The huge; nor felt your courage clog
At tokens of his onset grim:
You marked the sunk ship's flag-staff slim,
Lit by her burning sister's heart;
You marked, and mused: "Day...

("Sur une barricade.")

[June, 1871.]


Like Casabianca on the devastated deck,
In years yet younger, but the selfsame core.
Beside the battered barricado's restless wreck,
A lad stood splashed with gouts of guilty gore,
But gemmed with purest blood of patriot more.

Upon his fragile form the troopers' bloody grip
Was deeply dug, while sharply challenged they:
"Were you one of this currish crew?" - pride pursed his lip,
As firm as bandog's, brought the bull to bay -
While answered he: "I fought with others. Yea!"

"Prepare then to be shot! Go join that death-doomed row."
As paced he pertly past, a volley rang -
And as he fell in line, mock mercies once more flow
Of man's lead-lightning's sudden scathing pang,
But to his home-tur...

Dark spirit! who through every age
    Hast cast a baleful gloom;
Stern lord of strife and civil rage,
    The dungeon and the tomb!
What homage should men pay to thee,
Spirit of woe and anarchy?

Yet there are those who in thy train
    Can feel a fierce delight;
Who rush, exulting, to the plain,
    And triumph in the fight,
Where the red banner floats afar
Along the crimson tide of war.

Who is the knight on sable steed,
    That comes with thundering tread?
Dark warrior, slack thy furious speed,
    Nor trample on the dead:
A youthful chief before thee lies,
Struggling in life's last agonies.

Oh pause one moment in thy course,
    Those lineaments to trace;
Dost thou not feel a strange remorse,
    Whilst gazing on ...

An angel spoke with me, and lo, he hoarded
My falling tears to cheer a flower's face!
For, so it seems, in all the heavenly space
A wasted grief was never yet recorded.
Victorious calm those holy tones afforded
Unto my soul, whose outcry, in disgrace,
Changed to low music, leading to the place
Where, though well armed, with futile end awarded,
My past lay dead. "Wars are of earth!" he cried;
"Endurance only breathes immortal air.
Courage eternal, by a world defied,
Still wears the front of patience, smooth and fair."
Are wars so futile, and is courage peace?
Take, then, my soul, thus gently thy release!

I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.
II
What can I but enumerate old themes?
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs or courtly shows;
But what cared I that set him on to ride,
I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride?

And then a counter-truth filled out its play,
i(The Countess Cathleen) was t...

Securely, after days
Unnumbered, I behold
Kings mourn that promised praise
Their cheating bards foretold.

Of earth constricting Wars,
Of Princes passed in chains,
Of deeds out-shining stars,
No word or voice remains.

Yet furthest times receive,
And to fresh praise restore,
Mere breath of flutes at eve,
Mere seaweed on the shore.

A smoke of sacrifice;
A chosen myrtle-wreath;
An harlot's altered eyes;
A rage 'gainst love or death;

Glazed snow beneath the moon,
The surge of storm-bowed trees,
The Caesars perished soon,
And Rome Herself: But these

Endure while Empires fall
And Gods for Gods make room....
Which greater God than all
Imposed the amazing doom?

Once more, dear friends, you meet beneath
A clouded sky
Not yet the sword has found its sheath,
And on the sweet spring airs the breath
Of war floats by.

Yet trouble springs not from the ground,
Nor pain from chance;
The Eternal order circles round,
And wave and storm find mete and bound
In Providence.

Full long our feet the flowery ways
Of peace have trod,
Content with creed and garb and phrase:
A harder path in earlier days
Led up to God.

Too cheaply truths, once purchased dear,
Are made our own;
Too long the world has smiled to hear
Our boast of full corn in the ear
By others sown;

To see us stir the martyr fires
Of long ago,
And wrap our satisfied desires
In the singed mantles that our sires
H...

Our hearts are set on pleasure and on gain.
Fine clothes, fair houses, more and daintier bread;
We have no strivings, and no hunger-pain
For spiritual food; our souls are dead.
So judged I till the day when news was rife
Of fire besieging scholars and their dames,
And bravely one gave up her own fair life
In saving the most helpless from the flames.

Then when I heard the instantaneous cheer
That broke with sobbing undertones from all
The multitude, and watched them drawing near,
Stricken and mute, around her funeral pall
In grief and exultation, I confest
My judgment erred, - we know and love the best.

Serene, indifferent of Fate,
Thou sittest at the Western Gate;

Upon thy height, so lately won,
Still slant the banners of the sun;

Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,
O Warder of two continents!

And, scornful of the peace that flies
Thy angry winds and sullen skies,

Thou drawest all things, small, or great,
To thee, beside the Western Gate.

O lion’s whelp, that hidest fast
In jungle growth of spire and mast!

I know thy cunning and thy greed,
Thy hard high lust and willful deed,

And all thy glory loves to tell
Of specious gifts material.

Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hide
Her skeptic sneer and all her pride!

Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hood
Of her Franciscan Brotherhood.

H...

(Oscar Wilde.)


I gazed upon thee desolate and heard
    Thine anguished cry when fell the iron gin
That all but broke thy soul, yet gave thy word
    The strength to ask forgiveness of thy sin.

I saw thee fleeing from the cruel light
    Of thine own fame; I saw thee hide thy face
In alien dust to cover up the blight
    Upon thy brow that time may yet erase.

I knew thy creed, although thy lips were mute;
    I knew the gods thou didst not dare to own;
I knew the Upas poison at the root
    Of thy last flower of song, in prison blown.

And out of all thy woe there came to me
    This miracle of dogma, like a cry:
"No law but freedom for the vagrant bee--
    No love but summer for the butterfly."

I

Seek who will delight in fable
I shall tell you truth. A Lamb
Leapt from this steep bank to follow
'Cross the brook its thoughtless dam.

Far and wide on hill and valley
Rain had fallen, unceasing rain,
And the bleating mother's Young-one
Struggled with the flood in vain:

But, as chanced, a Cottage-maiden
(Ten years scarcely had she told)
Seeing, plunged into the torrent,
Clasped the Lamb and kept her hold.

Whirled adown the rocky channel,
Sinking, rising, on they go,
Peace and rest, as seems, before them
Only in the lake below.

Oh! it was a frightful current
Whose fierce wrath the Girl had braved;
Clap your hands with joy my Hearers,
Shout in triumph, both are saved;

Saved by courage that with dang...

Through the dark wood
    There came to me a friend,
Bringing in his cold hands
    Two words - 'The End.'

His face was fair
    As fading autumn flowers,
And the lost joy
    Of unforgotten hours.

His voice was sweet
    As rain upon a grave;
'Be brave,' he smiled.
    And yet again - 'be brave.'

Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;
Remember the wisdom out of the old days:
Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,
And the winds that blow through the starry ways,
Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
Cover over and hide, for he has no part
With the proud, majestical multitude.

Roughest roads, we often find,
Lead us on to th' nicest places;
Kindest hearts oft hide behind
Some o'th' plainest-lukkin faces.

Flaars whose colors breetest are,
Oft delight awr wond'ring seet;
But ther's others, humbler far,
Smell a thaasand times as sweet.

Burds o' monny color'd feather,
Please us as they skim along,
But ther charms all put together,
Connot equal th' skylark's song.

Bonny women - angels seemin, -
Set awr hearts an brains o' fire;
But its net ther beauties; beamin,
Its ther gooidness we admire.

Th' bravest man 'at's in a battle,
Isn't allus th' furst i'th' fray;
He best proves his might an' mettle,
Who remains to win the day.

Monkey's an vain magpies chatter,
But it doesn't prove 'em wis...

Surely I must have ailed
On that dark night,
Or my childish courage failed
Because there was no light;
Or terror must have come
With his chill wing,
And made my angel dumb,
Or found him slumbering.
Because I could not sleep
Terror began to wake,
Close at my side to creep
And sting me like a snake.
And I was afraid of death,
But when I thought of pain--
O, language no word hath
To recall that thought again!
Into my heart fear crawled
And wreathed close around,
Mortal, convulsive, cold,
And I lay bound.
Fear set before my eyes
Unimaginable pain;
Approaching agonies
Sprang nimbly into my brain.
Just as a thrilling wind
Plucks every mournful wire,
So terror on my wild mind
Fingered, with ice and fire.
O, ...

She feels outwearied, as though o'er her head
    A storm of mighty billows broke and passed.
Whose hand upheld her?    Who her footsteps led
    To this green haven of sweet rest at last?
What strength was hers, unreckoned and unknown?
What love sustained when she was most alone?


Unutterably pathetic her desire,
    To reach, with groping arms outstretched in prayer,
Something to cling to, to uplift her higher
    From this low world of coward fear and care,
Above disaster, that her will may be
At one with God's, accepting his decree.


Though by no reasons she be justified,
    Yet strangely brave in Evil's very face,
She deems this want must needs be satisfied,
    Though here all slips from out her weak embrace.
And in blind ecstasy o...

Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent; hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows; but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.

There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the autumn evening. But ah!
That word, gloom, to my mind
Brings thee back, in the light
Of thy radiant vigour, again;
In the gloom of November we pass'd
Days not dark at thy side;
Seasons impair'd not the ray
Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear.
Such thou wast! and I stand
In the autumn e...

The fourteen centuries fall away
Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old complaint.

No outward sign to us is given,
From sea or earth comes no reply;
Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven
He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.

No victory comes of all our strife,
From all we grasp the meaning slips;
The Sphinx sits at the gate of life,
With the old question on her awful lips.

In paths unknown we hear the feet
Of fear before, and guilt behind;
We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat
Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.

From age to age descends unchecked
The sad bequest of sire to son,
The body's taint, the mind's defect;
Through every web of life the dark threads run.