Courage

1.
One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

2.
I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not, -
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

I see a land of desperate droughts and floods:
I see a land where need keeps spreading round,
And all but giants perish in the stress:
I see a land where more, and more, and more
The demons, Earth and Wealth, grow bloat and strong.

I see a land that lies a helpless prey
To wealthy cliques and gamblers and their slaves,
The huckster politicians: a poor land
That less and less can make her heart-wish law.

Yea, but I see a land where some few brave
Raise clear eyes to the Struggle that must come,
Reaching firm hands to draw the doubters in,
Preaching the gospel: "Drill and drill and drill!"
Yea, but I see a land where best of all
The hope of victory burns strong and bright!

"The Old and Bold"

When England sets her banner forth
    And bids her armour shine,
She'll not forget the famous North,
    The lads of moor and Tyne;
And when the loving-cup's in hand,
    And Honour leads the cry,
They know not old Northumberland
    Who'll pass her memory by.

When Nelson sailed for Trafalgar
    With all his country's best,
He held them dear as brothers are,
    But one beyond the rest.
For when the fleet with heroes manned
    To clear the decks began,
The boast of old Northumberland
    He sent to lead the van.


Himself by Victory's bulwarks stood
    And cheered to see the sight;
"That noble fellow Collingwood,
    How bold he goes to fight!"
Love, that the league of Ocean spanned,<...

Split the lark and you'll find the music,
Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled,
Scantily dealt to the summer morning,
Saved for your ear when lutes be old.

Loose the flood, you shall find it patent,
Gush after gush, reserved for you;
Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas,
Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?

Through some strange sense of sight or touch
I find what all have found before,
The presence I have feared so much,
The unknown's immaterial door.

I seek not and it comes to me:
I do not know the thing I find:
The fillet of fatality
Drops from my brows that made me blind.

Point forward now or backward, light!
The way I take I may not choose:
Out of the night into the night,
And in the night no certain clews.

But on the future, dim and vast,
And dark with dust and sacrifice,
Death's towering ruin from the past
Makes black the land that round me lies.

They are buffeting out in the bitter grey weather,
    Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!
Sea-lark singing to Golden Feather,
    And burly blue waters all swelling aroun'.
There's Thunderstone butting ahead as they wallow,
    With death in the mesh of their deep-sea trawl;
There's Night-Hawk swooping by wild Sea-swallow;
    And old Cap'n Storm-along leading 'em all.

    Bashing the seas to a welter of white,
    Look at the fleet that he leads to the fight.
    O, they're dancing like witches to open the ball;
    And old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of 'em all.

Now, where have you seen such a bully old sailor?
    His eyes are as blue as the scarf at his throat;
And he rolls on the bridge of his br...

Beyond the moor and the mountain crest
- Comrade, look not on the west -
The sun is down and drinks away
From air and land the lees of day.

The long cloud and the single pine
Sentinel the ending line,
And out beyond it, clear and wan,
Reach the gulfs of evening on.

The son of woman turns his brow
West from forty countries now,
And, as the edge of heaven he eyes,
Thinks eternal thoughts, and sighs.

Oh wide’s the world, to rest or roam,
With change abroad and cheer at home,
Fights and furloughs, talk and tale,
Company and beef and ale.

But if I front the evening sky
Silent on the west look I,
And my comrade, stride for stride,
Paces silent at my side,

Comrade, look not on the west:
‘Twill have the heart out ...

Fair summer home peninsula,
    Enriched by every breeze
From fragrant islands, wafted far
    Across the sunny seas!

A profile rare! a height of land
    Outlined 'gainst heaven's blue
With bolder touch than skillful hand
    Of artist ever drew.

In "mountain billows" that parade
    The grandeur of the deep,
Is His supremacy displayed
    Whose hands the waters keep.

No sweep of waves, in broad expanse,
    With wild, weird melody,
Shall thus an unseen world enhance -
    "There shall be no more sea!"

A wealth of joy-perfected days,
    Where glorious sunset dyes,
Resplendent in declining rays,
    Surpass Italia's skies!

Proud caravansaries that compete
    In studied arts to please
The multitude, ...

The moon was but a chin of gold
A night or two ago,
And now she turns her perfect face
Upon the world below.

Her forehead is of amplest blond;
Her cheek like beryl stone;
Her eye unto the summer dew
The likest I have known.

Her lips of amber never part;
But what must be the smile
Upon her friend she could bestow
Were such her silver will!

And what a privilege to be
But the remotest star!
For certainly her way might pass
Beside your twinkling door.

Her bonnet is the firmament,
The universe her shoe,
The stars the trinkets at her belt,
Her dimities of blue.

In His blest name, who was His own creation,
Who from all time makes making his vocation;
The name of Him who makes our faith so bright,
Love, confidence, activity, and might;
In that One's name, who, named though oft He be,
Unknown is ever in Reality:
As far as ear can reach, or eyesight dim,
Thou findest but the known resembling Him;
How high so'er thy fiery spirit hovers,
Its simile and type it straight discovers
Onward thou'rt drawn, with feelings light and gay,
Where'er thou goest, smiling is the way;
No more thou numbrest, reckonest no time,
Each step is infinite, each step sublime.

I

'But where do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.

II

'Because I fear you,' he answered; 'because you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your golfd-coloured hair.'

III

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,
And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.'

IV

'Yet farewell so,' he answered; 'the sunstroke's fatal at times.
I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the limes.

V

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. You smell a rose through a fence:
If two should smell it what matter? who grumbles, and where's the pretense?

VI

    'Neath their black yews in solemn state
        The owls are sitting in a row
        Like foreign gods; and even so
    Blink their red eyes; they meditate.

    Quite motionless they hold them thus
        Until at last the day is done,
        And driving down the slanting sun,
    The sad night is victorious.

    They teach the wise who gives them ear
    That in this world he most should fear
        All things which loud or restless be.

    Who, dazzled by a passing shade,
        Follows it, never will be free
    Till the dread penalty be paid.

Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire
Of watching you; and swing me suddenly
Into the shade and loneliness and mire
Of the last land! There, waiting patiently,

One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,
See a slow light across the Stygian tide,
And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,
And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,

And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,
Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,
Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam,
Most individual and bewildering ghost!

And turn, and toss your brown delightful head
Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.

Fair city by the famed Batrachian Pool,
Wise in the teachings of the Concord School;
Home of the Eurus, paradise of cranks,
Stronghold of thrift, proud in your hundred banks;
Land of the mind-cure and the abstruse book,
The Monday lecture and the shrinking Cook;
Where twin-lensed maidens, careless of their shoes,
In phrase Johnsonian oft express their views;
Where realistic pens invite the throng
To mention "spades," lest "shovels" should be wrong;
Where gaping strangers read the thrilling ode
To Pilgrim Trousers on the West-End road;
Where strange sartorial questions as to pants
Offend our "sisters, cousins, and our aunts;"
Where men expect by simple faith and prayer
To lift a lid and find a dollar there;
Where labyrinthine lanes that sinuous creep
Make ...

A plan the Muses entertain'd

Methodically to impart

To Psyche the poetic art;
Prosaic-pure her soul remain'd.
No wondrous sounds escaped her lyre

E'en in the fairest Summer night;
But Amor came with glance of fire,

The lesson soon was learn'd aright.

"Mooar fowk get wed nor what do weel,"
A've heeard mi mother say;
But mooast young lads an lasses too,
Think just th' contrary way.
An lasses mooar nor lads it seems,
To wed seem nivver flaid;
For nowt they seem to dreead as mich
As deein an old maid.
But oft for single life they sigh,
An net withaat a cause,
When wi' ther tongue they've teed a knot,
Ther teeth's too waik to lawse.
Days arn't allus weddin days,
They leearn that to ther sorrow,
When panics come an th' brass gets done,
An they've to try to borrow.
When th' chap at th' strap shop's lukkin glum,
An hardly seems to know yo;
An gooas on sarvin other fowk
As if he nivver saw yo.
An when yo're fain to pile up th' foir,
Wi' bits o' cowks an cinders; -
When poverty says, "h...

November's hail-cloud drifts away,
November's sunbeam wan
Looks coldly on the castle grey,
When forth comes Lady Anne.
The orphan by the oak was set,
Her arms, her feet, were bare;
The hail drops had not melted yet,
Amid her raven hair.
"And, dame," she said, "by all the ties
That child and mother know,
Aid one who never knew these joys,
Relieve an orphan's woe."
The lady said, "An orphan's state
Is hard and sad to bear;
Yet worse the widow'd mother's fate
Who mourns both lord and heir.
"Twelve times the rolling year has sped,
Since, when from vengeance wild
Of fierce Strathallan's Chief I fled
Forth's eddies whelm'd my child."
"Twelve times the year its course has borne,"
The wandering maid replied;
"Since fishers on Saint Bridge...

Why did you flutter in vain hope, poor bird,
Hard-pressed in your small cage of clay?
'Twas but a sweet, false echo that you heard,
    Caught only a feint of day.

Still is the night all dark, a homeless dark.
Burn yet the unanswering stars. And silence brings
The same sea's desolate surge - sans bound or mark -
    Of all your wanderings.

Fret now no more; be still. Those steadfast eyes,
Those folded hands, they cannot set you free;
Only with beauty wake wild memories -
Sorrow for where you are, for where you would be.