Courage

THE BALLAD OF CARMILHAN

I

At Stralsund, by the Baltic Sea,
    Within the sandy bar,
At sunset of a summer's day,
Ready for sea, at anchor lay
    The good ship Valdemar.

The sunbeams danced upon the waves,
    And played along her side;
And through the cabin windows streamed
In ripples of golden light, that seemed
    The ripple of the tide.

There sat the captain with his friends,
    Old skippers brown and hale,
Who smoked and grumbled o'er their grog,
And talked of iceberg and of fog,
    Of calm and storm and gale.

And one was spinning a sailor's yarn
    About Klaboterman,
The Kobold of the sea; a spright
Invisible to mortal sight,
    Who o'er the rigging ran.

Sometimes he hammered in the ...

Beyond the wall the passion flower is blooming,
    Strange hints of life along the winds are blown;
Within, the cowled and silent men are kneeling
    Before an image on a cross of stone,
And on their lifted faces, wan as death,
I read this simple message of their faith:
            "The trail of flame is ashen,
                And pleasure's lees are gray,
            And gray the fruit of passion
                Whose ripeness is decay;
            The stress of life is rancor,
                A madness born to slay;
            They only miss its canker
                Who live with God and pray."

Beyond the wall lies Babylon, the mighty;
    Faint echoes of her songs come drifting by;
Within there is a hymn of consecration,
    A psalm that lif...

When o'er the street the morning peal is flung
From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue,
Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale,
To each far listener tell a different tale.
The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor
Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar,
Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one,
Each dull concussion, till his task is done.
Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note
Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat,
Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street,
Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet;
The bell, responsive to her secret flame,
With every note repeats her lover's name.
The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane,
Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain,
Hears the stern accents, as they come and go,

Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say;
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;
But be the war within, the brand we wield
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,
Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.

Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.

Chi vuol veder quantunque può Natura.

WHOEVER BEHOLDS HER MUST ADMIT THAT HIS PRAISES CANNOT REACH HER PERFECTION.


    Who wishes to behold the utmost might
Of Heaven and Nature, on her let him gaze,
Sole sun, not only in my partial lays,
But to the dark world, blind to virtue's light!
And let him haste to view; for death in spite
The guilty leaves, and on the virtuous preys;
For this loved angel heaven impatient stays;
And mortal charms are transient as they're bright!
Here shall he see, if timely he arrive,
Virtue and beauty, royalty of mind,
In one bless'd union join'd. Then shall he say
That vainly my weak rhymes to praise her strive,
Whose dazzling beams have struck my genius blind:--
He must for ever weep if he delay!

CHARL...

In France I saw a hill - a gentle slope
Rising above old tombs to greet the gleam
From soft spring skies.    Beyond these skies dwells hope,
But those green graves bespeak a broken dream.

There was a row of narrow beds, new-made;
Each bore a starry banner and a cross.
And each the name of one who, ere he played
His role of warrior, met earth's final loss.

They were so young, so eager for the fray!
And thoughts of glory filled each boyish heart,
When over dangerous seas they sailed away
To face the foe and play some splendid part.

But in the tedious toil, the dull routine
Which must precede achievement on the field,
Disease, that secret enemy with mean
Sly tactics, forced them to disarm and yield.

So they were buried on that hill in Fran...

So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three.
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot
Because he was five and a man,
And that's how it all began, my dears,
And that's how it all began!

Then we brought the lances down, then the trumpets blew,
When we went to Kandahar, ridin' two an' two.
Ridin', ridin', ridin' two an' two!
Ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-a!
All the way to Kandahar,
Ridin' two an' two.

The wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn,
When the smoke of the cooking hung grey.
He knew where the doe made a couch for her fawn,
And he looked to his strength for his prey.
But the moon swept the smoke-wreaths away;
And he turned from his meal in the vil...

Jean de Breboeuf, a priest of the Jesuit Order, came to Canada as a missionary to the Indians about the year 1625. He belonged to an old and honourable French family that had given many sons to the army, and was a man of great physical strength, one who possessed an iron will, that was yet combined with sweetness and gentleness of temper.

He lived with the Indians for many years, and spoke the dialects of different tribes, though his mission was chiefly to the Hurons. By them he was much beloved.

At the time of the uprising of the Iroquois in 1649, there was a massacre of the Hurons at the little mission village of St. Louis upon the shores of Georgian Bay. There Jean de Breboeuf, refusing to leave his people, met death by torture at the hands of the conquering Iroquois. Lalement, his friend, a priest of the same ord...

O mater! O fils!
O brood continental!
O flowers of the prairies!
O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!
O you teeming cities! O so invincible, turbulent, proud!
O race of the future! O women!
O fathers! O you men of passion and the storm!
O native power only! O beauty!
O yourself! O God! O divine average!
O you bearded roughs! O bards! O all those slumberers!
O arouse! the dawn bird's throat sounds shrill! Do you not hear the cock crowing?
O, as I walk'd the beach, I heard the mournful notes foreboding a tempest--the low, oft-repeated shriek of the diver, the long-lived loon;
O I heard, and yet hear, angry thunder;--O you sailors! O ships! make quick preparation!
O from his masterful sweep, the warning cry of the eagle!
(Give way there, all! It is useless! Give up...

The Autumn promised, and he keeps
His word unto the meadow-rose.
The pure, bright lightnings herald Spring,
Serene and glad the fresh earth shows.
The rain has quenched her children's thirst,
Her cheeks, but now so cold and dry,
Are soft and fair, a laughing face;
With clouds of purple shines the sky,
Though filled with light, yet veiled with haze.
Hark! hark! the turtle's mocking note
Outsings the valley-pigeon's lays.
Her wings are gemmed, and from her throat,
When the clear sun gleams back again,
It seems to me as though she wore
About her neck a jewelled chain.
Say, wilt thou darken such a light,
Wilt drag the clouds from heaven's height?
Although thy heart with anger swell,
Yet firm as marble mine doth dwell.
Therein no fear thy wrath beget...

The stream is shrunk, the pool is dry,
And we be comrades, thou and I;
With fevered jowl and dusty flank
Each jostling each along the bank;
And, by one drouthy fear made still,
Forgoing thought of quest or kill.
Now 'neath his dam the fawn may see,
The lean Pack-Wolf as cowed as he,
And the tall buck, unflinching, note
The fangs that tore his father's throat.
The pools are shrunk, the streams are dry,
And we be playmates, thou and I,
Till yonder cloud, Good Hunting! Loose
The rain that breaks our Water Truce.

        The wintry sun was pale
            On hill and hedge;
        The wind smote with its flail
            The seeded sedge;
        High up above the world,
            New taught to fly,
        The withered leaves were hurled
            About the sky;
        And there, through death and dearth,
            It went and came,--
        The Glory of the earth
            That hath no name.

        I know not what it is;
            I only know
        It quivers in the bliss
            Where roses blow,
        That on the winter's breath
            It broods in space,
        And o'er the face of death
            I see its face,
        And start and stand between
            Delight and dole,
        As though m...

Here when the cloudless April days begin,
And the quaint crows flock thicker day by day,
Filling the forests with a pleasant din,
And the soiled snow creeps secretly away,
Comes the small busy sparrow, primed with glee,
First preacher in the naked wilderness,
Piping an end to all the long distress
From every fence and every leafless tree.

Now with soft slight and viewless artifice
Winter's iron work is wondrously undone;
In all the little hollows cored with ice
The clear brown pools stand simmering in the sun,
Frail lucid worlds, upon whose tremulous floors
All day the wandering water-bugs at will,
Shy mariners whose oars are never still,
Voyage and dream about the heightening shores.

The bluebird, peeping from the gnarlèd thorn,
Prattles upon...

I

"Begone, thou fond presumptuous Elf,"
Exclaimed an angry Voice,
"Nor dare to thrust thy foolish self
Between me and my choice!"
A small Cascade fresh swoln with snows
Thus threatened a poor Briar-rose,
That, all bespattered with his foam,
And dancing high and dancing low,
Was living, as a child might know,
In an unhappy home.

II

"Dost thou presume my course to block?
Off, off! or, puny Thing!
I'll hurl thee headlong with the rock
To which thy fibres cling."
The Flood was tyrannous and strong;
The patient Briar suffered long,
Nor did he utter groan or sigh,
Hoping the danger would be past;
But, seeing no relief, at last,
He ventured to reply.

III

"Ah!" said the Briar, "blame me not;
Why sho...

    "She gallops night by night through lovers' brains...."

    I see grindstones in the sky,
    pots of tulips overturned
    - big tug of the reins
    and chestnut hair
    is seen before the windowpane
    with chance & more chance lost to
    frost or hungry bees
    this still autumn eve.

    Darling,
    walls that division us
    are envelopes of passion
    bridging trust, seal it
    lest it rust.

    Skeletal scrapings
    make for poor bedding
    (this poor rhinoceros of lies)
    the devil gliding about so disguised
    on his tentacle and toenail chair
    (inviting lair) or is it
    hiccup and bandaged prayer
    yet stalwart wall is a rosary bead
    thick ale and bread to hungry snail

To his heart it struck such terror
That he laughed a laugh of scorn, -
The man in the soldier's doublet,
With the sword so bravely worn.

It struck his heart like the frost-wind
To find his comrades fled,
While the battle-field was guarded
By the heroes who lay dead.

He drew his sword in the sunlight,
And called with a long halloo:
"Dead men, there is one living
Shall stay it out with you!"

He raised a ragged standard,
This lonely soul in war,
And called the foe to onset,
With shouts they heard afar.

They galloped swiftly toward him.
The banner floated wide;
It sank; he sank beside it
Upon his sword, and died.

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
He pass’d by the town and out of the street;
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun,
And waves of shadow went over the wheat;
And he sat him down in a lonely place,
And chanted a melody loud and sweet,
That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud,
And the lark drop down at his feet.


The swallow stopt as he hunted the fly,
The snake slipt under a spray,
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
And stared, with his foot on the prey;
And the nightingale thought, ‘I have sung many songs,
But never a one so gay,
For he sings of what the world will be
When the years have died away.’

Death! where is thy victory?
To triumph whilst I die,
To triumph whilst thine ebon wing
Enfolds my shuddering soul?
O Death! where is thy sting?
Not when the tides of murder roll,
When nations groan, that kings may bask in bliss,
Death! canst thou boast a victory such as this -
When in his hour of pomp and power
His blow the mightiest murderer gave,
Mid Nature's cries the sacrifice
Of millions to glut the grave;
When sunk the Tyrant Desolation's slave;
Or Freedom's life-blood streamed upon thy shrine;
Stern Tyrant, couldst thou boast a victory such as mine?

To know in dissolution's void
That mortals' baubles sunk decay;
That everything, but Love, destroyed
Must perish with its kindred clay, -
Perish Ambition's crown,
Perish her sceptr...